Paleoclimatology has been wedded to continental drift from its first presentation. It should be remembered that Wegener's (1912) idea of continental dispersion arose initially from a consideration of the south Atlantic and that he was constrained, by the evidence of ancient glacial climates, to combine continental dispersion with a northerly motion for which he had to introduce a special mechanism, polfluchtkraft, to explain the migration of the continents from frigid to progressively warmer climates. The extent of the usefulness of paleoclimatology in the union lies in the degree to which it can provide a critical latitude statement, and this in turn requires that climates be uniquely identified and that they show a predominantly latitudinal control. If the results have been less than desired, the reason may be traced to an incomplete appreciation of these points. While very few doubt that some form of statement concerning latitude change may be made in...
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Nairn, A.E.M. (1987). Continental drift, paleoclimatological evidence . In: Structural Geology and Tectonics. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-31080-0_14
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