Theories on Crustal Displacement or Polar Shifts

The Albert Einstein and Charles Hapgood  Letters

A series of correspondences in the mid 1950s between Albert Einstein and Charles Hapgood suggests that Einstein was more than intrigued by the fact that the earth crust periodically slips - not in thousands of years, but potentially in one very violent jolt.

After the initial contact Hapgood and at Einstein's suggestion, presented the pole shift theory after a six-month study of gathering geological and paleontological facts to support his claims. This theory of crustal displacement indicates that the entire crust of the earth could possibly shift in one piece like the lose skin of an orange. Einstein  continued correspondence with Hapgood suggesting he address the centrifugal momentum problem, meaning the actual movement away from the center of axis. Hapgood responded to Einstein with over forty pages of research data, convincing Einstein the research was indeed significant but valid as well.

Below is the forward written by Einstein for Charles Hapgood's book Earths Shifting Crust: A Key to Some Basic Problems of Earth Science (published in 1958 by Pantheon Books, New York). 

"I frequently receive communications from people who wish to consult me concerning their unpublished ideas. It goes without saying that these ideas are very seldom possessed of scientific validity. The very first communication, however, that I  received from Mr. Hapgood electrified me. His idea is original, of great simplicity, and  - if it continues to prove itself of great importance to everything that is related to the history of the earth's surface. ... I think that this rather astonishing, even fascinating, idea deserves the serious attention of anyone who concerns himself with the theory of the earth's  development." 

Hapgood also indicated that the research was based on an ancient map which showed Antarctica with free flowing rivers, and paleontological data that Woolly Mammoths and other ancient animal species, have been found frozen solid with undigested vegetation in their stomachs. This suggests that a single cataclysmic event occurred with such ferocity that it killed these species in their tracts. Hapgood theorized that the earth has gone through three such crustal displacements over the last 100,00 years according to data gathered claimed the last occurrence was approximately 12000 years ago. He claimed that the extensive of weight as well as uneven placement of ice over the North American landmass during the last ice age period could possibly have caused such a massive slip. Einstein began to support the theoretical probabilities that such an event could happen and have happened in earths history.   In 1929, a group of historians found an the map to the left map drawn on a gazelle skin. Research showed that it was a genuine document drawn in 1513 by Piri Reis, a famous admiral of the Turkish fleet in the sixteenth century.

Science still finds this theory flawed, but agrees that occasional cataclysmic events do occur, It has been well established that continents are not stationary, instead are afloat on thick crustal plates over a sea of molten lava, which drifts at such a slow rate that movement isn’t felt. 

Lake Vostok and Other Subglacial Lakes

Recently discovered data suggest there is indeed a FRESH water lake about the size of Ontario Lake under 4 (2.5 miles) kilometers of of Antarctic ice. Geothermal heat coming from the planet's interior keeps the lake from freezing and warms the lowest layers of ice. Is it evidence that life may have been very different at the south pole some millennia ago and that a polar shift may have occurred in our past? Possibly. In the 

SCAR, acronym for Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research,  have had clues to its existence for decades. The Subglacial lake is called Lake Vostok, it has come under intense scientific scrutiny. Lake Vostok is seething with life, and as discovered to be one of the largest in a series of 70 Subglacial lakes! Its elongated outline and substantial depth resemble Lake Baikal in Siberia, which sits in a geologically active rift zone. At this site, Earth's outer shell is pulling apart, allowing molten rock to rise close to the surface and feed hydrothermal springs. See: http://www.scar.org

In the recent history of our planet, it's been proven that at least twice and as little as 18,000 years ago the planet earth had been frozen over according to an article released December of 1999 on the Smithsonian Magazine website. See http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues00/jul00/vostok.html

Geochemist Daniel Schrag, maintains earth was completely frozen over, after studying a strange sequences of rocks laid down on the bottoms of long-vanished oceans between 550 million and 750 million years ago. The carbon isotopes in those rocks  suggests that the earth was frozen over  Schrag suggests while the ocean was biologically dead and the land covered, the interior of the planet (meaning the earths core was still functioning as usual.