Atlantis Beneath the Ice (28 page)

Such were the physical attributes of Atlantis according to the learned Egyptian priest. But its culture and civilization remain an intriguing mystery. Though a few tantalizing details are revealed by Plato, it remains the task of modern archaeology to excavate life from the cold grave of the lost city. It is to the icy, dark waters of Antarctica that we look to find answers about the very roots of civilization itself, answers that may yet be preserved in the frozen depths of the forgotten island continent of Antarctica.

THIRTEEN

WHY THE SKY FELL

What was the force that propelled the earth’s crust to displace? How often has it happened? How long did it take to happen? Will it happen again, and if so when? Did the axis change? Why did the sky fall? These are the questions that haunted both Charles Hapgood and Albert Einstein
^a
from November 1952, when they began their correspondence, until April 1955, when Einstein died.

Earth crust displacement is not the first geological theory formulated without addressing the mechanism that initiated it. As noted in
chapter 9
, when Louis Agassiz introduced the notion of ice ages, he was met with extreme skepticism. Agassiz’s ice ages were catastrophic events that struck the planet out of the blue. Like his mentor, Georges Cuvier, Agassiz formulated his theory in an attempt to explain the sudden demise of animals in Siberia.
²
But Agassiz had no explanation for what caused the ice ages.

The geological establishment, lead by Charles Lyell, saw the importance of Agassiz’s theory. It offered an explanation for several long-standing problems such as the existence of large boulders in seemingly odd locations. But Lyell would have nothing to do with the notion of a cataclysm and so toned down Agassiz’s theory. As the result of Lyell’s
influence in geology the term
ice age
and the related term
glacial
have became synonymous with “ponderously slow change.” Agassiz’s theory has been successfully tamed to fit the fixation that all geological change is gradual.

Even without a mechanism to explain it, the ice age theory took its place as one of the underlying assumptions of modern geology. The quest for a mechanism to explain the cause or causes for ice ages has been going on for more than a century and a half—without success. Eventually nongeologists got into the quest for a mechanism that could explain the ice ages.

ICE AGES—THE SEARCH FOR A CAUSE

In 1842, the first astronomical clue was discovered by a mathematician working as a tutor in Paris. Joseph Alphonse Adhemar (1797–1862) knew that the earth passes through four cardinal points (the spring equinox, the summer solstice, the fall equinox, and the winter solstice) during its orbit around the sun. One season changes to another as the earth crosses these points.

The cardinal points gradually shift over a grand, twenty-two-thousand-year cycle due to the gravitational pull of the sun, moon, and planets on the earth. Adhemar knew that the earth is closest to the sun on January 3 and farthest away on July 4. At the present point in the orbit’s grand cycle, those in the Northern Hemisphere are nearest to the warmth of the sun, resulting in relatively mild winters. But eventually, in thousands of years, the earth will be drawn closer to the sun around the time of the summer solstice, precipitating sweltering summers and frigid winters. Adhemar believed that this gradual shifting of the cardinal points, which scientists today call the
precession of the equinoxes,
instigated the ice ages by depriving the earth of the sun’s genial influence at critical times.

In 1843, another French scientist, Urbain Leverrier (1811–1877), detected a second astronomical feature related to the ice ages. He realized
that the distance from the sun at which the earth traveled was affected by the actual
shape
of the earth’s orbit. Over a one-hundredthousand-year cycle, the orbit’s shape is gradually altered, again by the gravitational influences of the sun, moon, and other planets. It ranges from a near-perfect circle, as it is today, to a more oval orbit in which our world is carried farther from the sun, allowing the ice ages to gain a grip on the vulnerable earth.

Despite these breakthroughs in astronomy, there was still no agreement about the cause or timing of the ice ages. An unlikely source provided the third and final clue. Scotsman James Croll (1821–1890) was forced to drop out of school at the age of thirteen to help his mother raise their family. But although his formal classes had ended, he undertook an ambitious self-education program during which he mastered the fundamentals of the physical sciences. In 1859, after holding numerous jobs, from millwright to insurance salesman, he finally arrived at the position from which he made his monumental contribution to science: Croll became the janitor in the Andersonian College and Museum in Glasgow. He wrote, “My salary was small, it is true, little more than sufficient to enable me to subsist; but this was compensated by advantages for me of another kind.”
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The janitor had access to the college’s science library. It was all he needed. The untutored Croll decided to turn his talents to the puzzle that still eluded the scientific establishment: What had actually caused the ice ages? With the publication of his book
Climate and Time
in 1872, Croll introduced the third astronomical key to the mystery: change in the earth’s axis.

The angle of the earth’s tilt determines the amount of sunshine received by various parts of the planet. Changes in the tilt result in temperature changes on the earth’s surface. Today the axis is angled at 23.5°. But the tilt gradually changes, varying from a minimum of 21.8° to a maximum of 24.4°.

Milutin Milankovitch (1857–1927), a Serbian engineer who in 1911 was working as a professor of mathematics at the University of Belgrade,
used these astronomical factors to calculate the amount of solar radiation that would reach the earth at any particular time in its history. He believed that ice ages resulted when winter ice did not melt the following summer because the earth was not receiving enough warmth from the sun. Over successive seasons the ice sheets would thicken, slowly smothering the land beneath.

In 1976, Croll and Milankovitch’s ideas were validated by James Hay, John Imbrie, and Nicholas Shackleton, who published a paper showing that the geological evidence of the ice ages matched the astronomical cycles (see
chapter 10
). They showed that normally the earth is gripped by an ice age. But we now enjoy an interglacial period—that is, a very mild climate compared with what the planet normally endures.

Our present interglacial period, which began almost twelve thousand years ago, is destined to be only a short-lived melting period. During the last 350,000 years there have been four interglacial periods occurring roughly 335,000, 220,000, 127,000, and 11,600 years ago. Three astronomical cycles must coincide to bring about an interglacial period: the planet’s tilt must reach approximately 24.4°, the orbit’s shape must be elongated by at least 1 percent, and the earth must be closest to the sun in the month of June.

The Croll/Milankovitch astronomical theory of the ice ages is today gathering widespread support as an explanation for the
timing
of large-scale glacials. But it addresses only part of the question. Of equal importance is the
geography
of glaciations. It is here that the long-neglected theory of earth crust displacement plays its role in unraveling the mystery.
⁴
According to Hapgood’s theory, the areas of the globe that experience the coolest climates are those that are thrust into the polar zones.

In his foreword to Hapgood’s book Einstein explains the mechanism that might dislocate the crust. “In a polar region there is continual disposition of ice which is not symmetrically distributed about the pole. The earth’s rotation acts on these unsymmetrical deposited masses, and produces centrifugal momentum that is transmitted to this rigid crust
of the earth. The constantly increasing centrifugal momentum produced this way will, when it reaches a certain point, produce a movement of the earth’s crust over the rest of the earth’s body, and this will displace the polar regions toward the equator.”
⁵
And such a movement will, simultaneously, shift some temperate areas into the polar zones, freezing them until they are freed by another earth crust displacement.

Einstein, although convinced that displacements had occurred, doubted that the weight of the ice caps alone would produce sufficient force to dislodge the crust. Hapgood gave up searching for the cause of the displacements and concentrated on demonstrating how his theory could explain unsolved problems in geology and evolution.

The Croll/Milankovitch theory of ice ages suggests the combined extraterrestrial gravitational pull of the planets, sun, and moon and the terrestrial influence of the weight of the ice caps as a cause of the crustal displacements. We suggest that if the shape of the earth’s orbit deviates from a perfect circle by more than 1 percent, the gravitational influence of the sun increases because the earth’s path narrows at certain points. The sun exercises more pull on the planet and its massive ice sheets. The ponderous weight alternately pushes and pulls against the crust, and this immense pressure, combined with the greater incline in the earth’s tilt and the sun’s increased gravitational pull, forces the crust to shift.

After each displacement the ice sheets melt, raising the ocean level. This melting is compounded if the displacement coincides with the beginning of an interglacial period when worldwide temperatures climb. Such was the case 11,600 years ago following the last earth crust displacement. Eventually, as snowfall again accumulates within the repositioned Arctic and Antarctic circles, the ocean returns to a lower level and the cycle begins all over again.

The last earth crust displacement occurred 11,600 years ago when all three astronomical cycles meshed, ushering in the present interglacial epoch. The dominant cycle relating to these events is that of the earth’s tilt (now thought to move from the minimum of 21.8° to the
maximum of 24.4° every 41,000 years).
⁶
We believe other earth crust displacements occurred during the last glacial epochs at 11,600, 52,600, and 93,600 years ago.

Such a theory, coupled with Hapgood’s geomagnetic evidence for the location of the poles, accounts for the unique geography of glaciations. Those areas, trapped within the polar zones both before and after the displacements, accumulate unusually large amounts of glaciations.

Hapgood’s theory is simple, coherent, and fruitful. These are all features that Thomas Kuhn recognizes as being characteristics of what he termed a paradigm shift. The problem of the ice ages is transformed once we use Hapgood’s theory. The explanation is simple. Those parts of the earth’s crust that shift into the polar zones experience ice ages. Today there is an ice age in Siberia, Greenland, and Antarctica.
^b

CONTINENTAL DRIFT AND PLATE TECTONICS

In 1915 Alfred Wegener (1880–1930) introduced a radical new idea to geologists.
⁷
Noticing how Africa and South America seemed to be two pieces of an ancient puzzle, he suggested that the continents had drifted apart over millions of years. The idea was greeted with scorn by geologists, who called it “geo-poetry.”

For almost half a century the idea lay dormant until discoveries in the 1950s transformed the theory into what is known as plate tectonics. The new science of paleomagnetism began to support Wegener’s idea that there had once been a single continent that had drifted apart. In 1953, geomagnetic dating proved that India has once been in the southern hemisphere—a fact that Wegener had predicted. Today ice ages and plate tectonics are fundamental components of modern geology.

SOLAR TYPHOONS

In 2001, with the publication of
The Atlantis Blueprint
in the United States
,
Rand began correspondence with Jared Freedman, who suggested a mechanism for earth crust displacements. Freedman is a computer professional and inventor who worked with electromagnets. He is aware that the earth itself is a gigantic magnet possessing a metal core. When any magnet passes through an electromagnetic field, heat is generated. In an article titled “Solar Typhoons and Earth Crust Displacements,” he wrote, “If the Earth’s magnetic field received such a tremendous distortion of its magnetic field, over a prolonged period of time, it would generate immense amounts of heat within the Earth’s core as the Earth spun through the force that was causing the magnetic field disruption. The only force that can collapse the Earth’s magnetic field is the Sun’s magnetic field.”
⁸

In the article, Freedman noted that the sun has climatic variations of its own, but because of the immense size of the broiling star, they happen over longer periods of time. Solar storms can theoretically last for “days, weeks, or even more.” If the earth passes through electromagnetic waves coming from the sun, then force would be applied steadily to one of the poles. That energy would be carried into the Earth’s core where it could liquefy the solid nickel. Flows of metal to the earth’s surface could transform the asthenosphere from a sluggish tar into a liquid. He wrote, “Perhaps it is not the disruptions of the Earth’s core that cause fluctuations in the Earth’s magnetic field, but rather disruptions of the Earth’s magnetic field cause fluctuations in the Earth’s core.”
⁹