Comparison of ancient climates with the ancient latitudes deduced from rock magnetic measurements

Abstract

A systematic comparison has been made of the ancient magnetic latitudes of Europe, North America, India, Australia and South Africa with the evidence of ancient climates as deduced from geological data, in particular from the distribution of salt, glaciations and fossil corals. In spite of some discrepancies, the general agreement is close enough to lend support to the assumption that the ancient magnetic latitudes, calculated on the hypothesis of an axial dipole field, do represent also the ancient geographical latitudes. This support for the reliability of the magnetic data as a whole gives support for the hypothesis of continental drift and is opposed to the hypothesis that the earth’s ancient field differed greatly from that of a dipole.