Continental Drift Theory Supported

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32266, 8 April 1970, Page 4

Continental Drift Theory Supported

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) NEW YORK.

Two Columbia University scientists have announced the discovery of traces of shallowwater life in the deepest part o f the Atlantic Ocean seabed, which they say was once land bordered by coral reefs.

This supported the theory of continental drift, according to which North and South America, Africa and Europe ■ might have been a single continent hundreds of millions of years ago, they said

The announcement was made by Bruce Heezen, Professor of Geology at Columbia. and Paul Fox, a graduate student in geology at the university. Their findings were based on data gathered on a recent scientific voyage on the research vessel Eastward, operated by Duke University and supported by the National Science Foundation The scientists discovered the remains of shallow-water fossil life in rock under five miles of water off the eastern end of the Dominican Republic. The remains were found at the base of a 25,000 ft high underwater limestone cliff at the western end of the Puerto Rico Trench, the deepest part of the Atlantic. The fossil life was a type that grows only in shallow

reefs and tropical lagoons The findings convinced the scientists that this part of the earth’s crust has sunk by more than 20,000 ft during the past 150 million to 200 million years. This led them to what they call “the remarkable conclusion that the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean was once coral reef-bordered land.”