I have read Hapgood Cayce and others who claimed cataclysmic pole shifts and always waited for more scientific confirmation of “true polar wander”, or the variance of the poles from the current spin axis. Then I read a new study at Rice University that documented a slow shift over the last 13 million years. What intrigued me is that I live in Hawaii, and the hot spot that produces our islands extends off to the north and changes direction also. We know that the dating shows the slow movement of the hot spot over millions of years and before now it was ascribed to the movement of the Pacific Ocean basin as it subducted under South America. Here is a picture of the islands and the hot spot movement that caused the islands that are slowly weathering off to the north:
“This new explanation of the string of islands that extends all the way up to the Bering Straight is that the exterior of the Earth that floats on the magma of the interior slowly moved over 13 million years forcing Greenland north and causing the current Quaternary glaciation the last 3 million years.:
Rice U. scientists use Hawaiian hot spot to study movement of Earth’s poles
Earth’s latest ice age may have been caused by changes deep inside the planet. Based on evidence from the Pacific Ocean, including the position of the Hawaiian Islands, Rice University geophysicists have determined Earth shifted relative to its spin axis within the past 12 million years, which caused Greenland to move far enough toward the north pole to kick off the ice age that began about 3.2 million years ago.
Their study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters is based on an analysis of fossil signatures from deep ocean sediments, the magnetic signature of oceanic crust and the position of the mantle “hot spot” that created the Hawaiian Islands. Co-authors Richard Gordon and Daniel Woodworth said the evidence suggests Earth spun steadily for millions of years before shifting relative to its spin axis, an effect geophysicists refer to as “true polar wander.”
“The Hawaiian hot spot was fixed, relative to the spin axis, from about 48 million years ago to about 12 million years ago, but it was fixed at a latitude farther north than we find it today,” said Woodworth, a graduate student in Rice’s Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences. “By comparing the Hawaiian hot spot to the rest of the Earth, we can see that that shift in location was reflected in the rest of the Earth and is superimposed on the motion of tectonic plates. That tells us that the entire Earth moved, relative to the spin axis, which we interpret to be true polar wander.”
news.rice.edu/2018/11/19/true-pol…ice-age-2/
According to this new study the entire crust of the Earth moved 3 degrees in 13 million years over the hotspots around the world. They used to think it was only the Pacific plate that moved as it subducted under South America. This is the first good science that the entire crust of the Earth could move over the magma of the interior, all in one piece. The article is really interesting:
news.rice.edu/2018/11/19/true-pol…ice-age-2/
h/t Natura Naturans