Project Atlantis - an exercise in the application of earth science to a critical examination of a pseudoscience hypothesis

Journal of Geoscience Education, May 2003 by Earle, Steven

ABSTRACT

I ask my first-year physical geology students to write an essay examining the Crustal Displacement hypothesis (Flem-ath and Flem-ath, 1995), a hypothesis that is inconsistent with the accepted understanding of crustal and mantle processes. The assignment involves designing a test of the hypothesis, based on the material covered in our discussion of the theory of plate tectonics and of how the theory evolved. The assignment is useful because it forces students to solidify their understanding of plate tectonics by applying their knowledge in a new context, teaches them about the process of scientific reasoning and the need for objective analysis of all hypotheses, and gives them practice in critical thinking. This type of assignment could be applied to many comparable pseudoscience hypotheses in a wide range of geological disciplines.

Keywords: plate tectonics; science; education geoscience; education - undergraduate; education - science; geoscience - teaching and curriculum; history of geoscience.

INTRODUCTION

In my introductory physical geology course at Malaspina University-College the primary learning objectives are to become familiar with the nature and formation of minerals and rocks, and to gain an understanding of a variety of important geological processes. Some additional goals that are especially important to me include understanding the methods of science, learning about the history of earth science, promoting critical thinking, and encouraging students to apply the knowledge that they have gained.

In this course we look quite closely at the evolution of the theory of plate tectonics over the period from Alfred Wegener's publication of "The Origin of Continents and Oceans" (Wegener, 1915), to the early evolution of Plate Tectonic theory following the work of Hess (1962), Vine and Matthews (1963) and Wilson (1963a, 1963b, 1963c). We discuss why there was so much hostility to Wegener's ideas, and why, from our perspective, the geologists of the day did not adopt a more objective approach to his proposals.

One of my favourite assignments for students is an examination of a theory about the lost continent of Atlantis (Flem-ath and Flem-ath, 1995). I believe that this assignment is relevant to almost all of the stated learning objectives of the course.

The Flem-ath's thesis, which is based partly on an earlier publication of Hapgood (1970), holds that the Continent of Atlantis is actually Antarctica, and was shifted from its original location at a latitude of around 600 S, to its present location at the south pole 11,600 years ago, through a process is referred to as Crustal Displacement.

The civilization of Atlantis is described by Plato in his dialogues Timeaus and Critias, written during the decade prior to his death in 348 BC. Plato describes the demise of Atlantis, as follows:

But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and night of misfortune all your warlike men in a body sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea. For which reason the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud in the way; and this was caused by the subsidence of the island.

"Crustal Displacement" involves a dramatic and catastrophic shifting of the entire crust of the earth with res ect to the mantle and core approximately every 41,00 years. The event of 11,600 years ago is suggested to have involved a maximum displacement of over 3000 km (approximately 300 on the earth's surface). A time frame for the movement is not clearly stated by (Flem-ath and Flem-ath, 1995), but from an interpretation of the text it was evidently very fast in a geological context perhaps hundreds of years - perhaps even less. Rather than sinking beneath the sea, Atlantis is proposed to have moved to the south pole, while North America moved away from the north pole. Of course some areas of the crust would have moved much less than 3000 km, and others, at the poles of the rotation, would not have moved at all. Flem-ath and Flem-ath (1995) suggest that other crustal displacements - of a similar magnitude have occurred at 52,600 and 93,600 years ago, and on into the past at intervals of 41,000 years.

In support of their theory, Flem-ath and Flem-ath (1995) cite evidence such as:

the apparent similarity in size and shape between Atlantis (based on various written descriptions and maps) and Antarctica,

a large number of oral and written histories of widespread flooding at various times in the past, and the development of agriculture at relatively high elevations around the time of the last "displacement".

The proposed geological mechanism behind massive crustal displacements is related to build-up of thick ice-sheets in polar and near-polar regions. The idea of dramatic crustal displacements was originally proposed by Hapgood (1970). In correspondence with Hapgood in the early 1950s, Albert Einstein wrote:

In a polar region there is a continual disposition of ice, which is not symmetrically distributed about the pole. The earth's rotation acts on these unsymmetrically deposited masses, and produces centrifugal momentum that is transmitted to the rigid crust of the earth. The constantly increasing centrifugal momentum produced this way will, when it reaches a certain point, produce movement of the earth's crust over the rest of the earth's body, and this will displace the polar regions towards the equator. (Hapgood, 1970)