polar wandering simple definition

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Paleomagnetism, Polar Wander, and Plate Tectonics

The study of the Earth's magnetic field as recorded in the rock record was an important key in reconstructing the history of plate motions. We have already seen how the recording of magnetic reversals led to the confirmation of the seafloor spreading hypothesis. The concept of apparent polar wander paths was helpful in determining the speed, direction, and rotation of continents.

Apparent Polar Wander

To illustrate the idea of polar wander, imagine you have a composite volcano on a continent like the one in the sketch below. I assure you that the sketch will be better understood if you also watch the screencast in which I talk while I draw it.

Apparent polar wander sketch

Click here for transcript

In order to illustrate an apparent polar wander path, let’s say we’ve got the Earth here, and it’s got its poles like so, just the way they are today. The magnetic field lines are going like that. And let’s say we’ve got a continent sitting here. It looks like this. There’s a volcano on this continent and it’s a composite volcano. A composite volcano spews out lava and it gradually builds up the mountainside with its lava flows like this. Here’s the lava coming down this side. Let’s pretend we are a geologist and we’re going to go to this volcano and we’re going to take some samples of these lava flows. We’ll zoom in on these lava flows here. The uppermost sample of the lava flow, we’ll call that this green one here. Underneath that green one there’s a more orange-yellow lava flow and then under that there’s this oldest one here. We have a magnetometer and so we can try to figure out which way all these lava flows thought north was when they formed and cooled. Let’s say that the red one points sort of in this direction and the yellowish one looks like this. The green one was formed during the field like it is today so its north is like that. There are two possible explanations for how this could have occurred. We’ll draw those right here. Explanation 1 is that the poles moved around and the continent stayed in the same place. In that case, we’ve got a continent sitting here. When the most recent lava formed, this green stuff, the pole was right up here, where it is today. But back when this volcano was making the yellow lava, the pole was in a slightly different place. It was more like over here. The oldest lava flow is recording a pole that was more like in that direction. In this case we end up with what we call an apparent polar wander path. Over time from back when to the present time the pole moved in that direction. The other possibility is that the continent moved and the pole stayed in the same place. In that case, the green continent of today would be here. When this lava froze, it was pointing north toward the north pole. Back when this yellow lava formed, if the pole was in the same place then the continent would have to have been over here somewhere like this because its lava froze pointing north, but then over time when this continent moved to its present position with the lava still frozen in place it is now pointing in a different direction that isn’t where north is anymore. If we go back even farther in time toward the red lava, then the continent must have been sitting in a position sort of like this. When its lava formed, it was pointing north, then when this continent went through this rotation, this lava was already frozen in place, so the direction it’s pointing isn’t in the same place that north is now. We can construct a path — an apparent wander path if you will — of the continent. We can see that the continent must have gone sort of like this. This is in the opposite direction of the one we constructed before.

This volcano erupts from time to time, and when its lava solidifies and cools, it records the direction of the Earth's magnetic field. A geologist armed with a magnetometer could sample down through the layers of solidified lava and thus track the direction and intensity of the field over the span of geologic time recorded by that volcano. In fact, geologists did do this, and they discovered that the direction of the north pole was not stationary over time, but instead had apparently moved around quite a bit. There were two possible explanations for this:

• Either the pole was stationary and the continent had moved over time, or
• The continent was stationary and the pole had moved over time.

Seafloor Spreading Saves the Day!

Before plate tectonics was accepted, most geologists thought that the pole must have moved. However, once more and more measurements were made on different continents, it turned out that all the different polar wander paths could not be reconciled. The pole could not be in two places at once, and furthermore, the ocean floors all recorded either north or south, but not directions in between. So how could lavas of the same age on different land masses show historic directions of the north pole differently from each other? Once seafloor spreading was recognized as a viable mechanism for moving the lithosphere, geologists realized that these "apparent polar wander paths" could be used to reconstruct the past motions of the continents, using the assumption that the pole was always in about the same place (except during reversals).

Calculating a Paleomagnetic Latitude

The example in my fabulous drawing gives a rather vague description of the idea behind using paleomagnetic data to reconstruct the former positions of the continents, but how is it actually done? We use magnetometers.

The angle between the Earth's magnetic field and horizontal is called the magnetic inclination . Because the Earth is a round body in a dipole field, the inclination is directly dependent on latitude. In fact, the tangent of the angle of inclination is equal to twice the tangent of the magnetic latitude, which is the latitude at which the permanently magnetized rock was sitting when it became magnetized. Therefore, given knowledge of your present location and a magnetometer reading of the inclination of your geologic item of interest, such as a basalt flow, you can calculate the magnetic latitude at the time of its formation, compare it to your present location, and determine how many degrees of latitude your present location has moved since that rock cooled.

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The apparent motion of the Earth's magnetic or rotational poles as revealed by palaeomagnetism and other geological techniques. Rather than a motion of the poles relative to the continents—as originally thought—it is now interpreted as a sign of continental drift, as incorporated into the modern theory of plate tectonics.

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Science News

Solving one mystery of polar wander, share this:.

By Sid Perkins

April 15, 2003 at 5:17 pm

Astronomers have long known that the Earth wobbles as it spins. Several irregularities in rotation—small oscillations superimposed upon larger wobbles atop even larger waggles—cause the location of the true North Pole, about which the Earth rotates, to meander across the Arctic landscape.

The causes of some components of the pole’s overall movement are well understood, but the driving force for one element—the so-called Chandler wobble—has remained a mystery.

Seth Carlos Chandler Jr., a businessman turned astronomer, discovered this phenomenon in 1891. By itself, the Chandler wobble would cause the pole to move back and forth about 20 feet every 14 months. Scientists have calculated that the wobble would die out within 68 years if there weren’t a constant source of energy to reinvigorate it.

Over the past century, some researchers suggested that interactions between Earth’s core and the mantle that surrounds it cause the wobble. Others blamed annual changes in water distribution among the continents.

Although recent studies concluded that regular changes of the oceans and atmosphere probably have enough power to drive the wobble, the findings didn’t differentiate among those potential causes. Now, an analysis by Richard S. Gross, a geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., points a finger at long-term fluctuations in pressure at the ocean’s bottom.

Using improved models of the oceans and the atmosphere, Gross calculated variations in the overall amount of torque on Earth. He then compared these figures with the power needed to produce the Chandler wobble that scientists measured between 1985 and 1995. Gross presents his findings in the Aug. 1 Geophysical Research Letters .

He found that ocean currents and winds play only a minor role in driving the wobble. About two-thirds of the power driving the Chandler wobble probably comes from pressure changes on the ocean floor. Variations in the salinity and temperature of ocean water underlie such fluctuations, in part. Another third of the power likely comes from changes in atmospheric pressure, he adds.

Measurements of wobble may someday substitute for undersea data used for monitoring global variations in the oceans, suggests Clark R. Wilson, professor of geophysics at the University of Texas at Austin. “This finding could eventually help us better understand the role of the oceans as a driver for climate change,” he says. “We don’t have a lot of weather stations on the bottom of the oceans.”

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Polar Wandering and Continental Drift

This volume was an early classic during the controversial years before the general acceptance of plate tectonic theory began its rise to the forefront of global geology. The idea of continental drift was originally proposed by A L Wegener, Origin of Continents and Oceans (Braunschweig, 1922) in connection with his analysis of the origin of continents and oceans as a method to help explain anomalous distributive patterns of ancient climate zones [(Koppen-Wegener, Die Klimate der geologischen Vorzeit Borntraeger , Berlin 1924.)] The implications of this proposal seriously challenged many of the beliefs and theories of the constitution of the earth its physical properties tectonics and biologic developments. As a result a considerable furor of opposition arose on all counts but in particular the geophysicists alleged that drift was out of the question because the crust could not endure such forces. Others denied the need for moving the continents to explain either mountain chains or animal and plant disposition in space and time relationships. It has been attempted here to interpret the evidence in terms of two possible mechanisms a) Continental Drift and b) Polar Wandering.

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Polar Wandering and Continental Drift Author(s): Arthur C. Munyan https://doi.org/10.2110/pec.63.01 ISBN (electronic): 9781565761964 Publisher: SEPM Society for Sedimentary Geology Published: 1963

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• Front Matter Open the PDF Link PDF for Front Matter in another window Add to Citation Manager
• Introduction to Polar Wandering and Continental Drift Author(s) Arthur C. Munyan Arthur C. Munyan Old Dominion College, Norfolk, Virginia Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Doi: https://doi.org/10.2110/pec.63.01.0000 Abstract Open the PDF Link PDF for Introduction to Polar Wandering and Continental Drift in another window Add to Citation Manager
• Polar Wandering and Continental Drift: An Evaluation of Recent Evidence Author(s) Ernst R. Deutsch Ernst R. Deutsch Imperial Oil Limited, Calgary, Alberta, Canada Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Doi: https://doi.org/10.2110/pec.63.01.0001 Abstract Open the PDF Link PDF for Polar Wandering and Continental Drift: An Evaluation of Recent Evidence in another window Add to Citation Manager
• Palaeomagnetic Methods of Investigating Polar Wandering and Continental Drift Author(s) S. K. Runcorn S. K. Runcorn Physics Department, King’s College, Newcastle upon Tyne Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Doi: https://doi.org/10.2110/pec.63.01.0004 Abstract Open the PDF Link PDF for Palaeomagnetic Methods of Investigating Polar Wandering and Continental Drift in another window Add to Citation Manager
• Deep Focus Earthquakes in South America and their Possible Relation to Continental Drift Author(s) Horacio J. Harrington Horacio J. Harrington Tennessee Overseas Company, Division of Tenneco Oil Company, Houston, Texas Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Doi: https://doi.org/10.2110/pec.63.01.0047 Abstract Open the PDF Link PDF for Deep Focus Earthquakes in South America and their Possible Relation to Continental Drift in another window Add to Citation Manager
• Antarctic Tectonics and Continental Drift * Author(s) Warren Hamilton Warren Hamilton U. S. Geological Survey, Denver, Colorado Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Doi: https://doi.org/10.2110/pec.63.01.0055 Abstract Open the PDF Link PDF for Antarctic Tectonics and Continental Drift^{<a href="javascript:;" reveal-id="ch05fn1" data-open="ch05fn1" class="link link-ref link-reveal xref-fn js-xref-fn split-view-modal">^*</a>} in another window Add to Citation Manager
• Polar Wandering and Climate * Author(s) Maurice Ewing ; Maurice Ewing Lamont Geological Observatory (Columbia University) Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar William L. Donn William L. Donn Lamont Geological Observatory (Columbia University) Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Doi: https://doi.org/10.2110/pec.63.01.0094 Abstract Open the PDF Link PDF for Polar Wandering and Climate^{<a href="javascript:;" reveal-id="ch06fn1" data-open="ch06fn1" class="link link-ref link-reveal xref-fn js-xref-fn split-view-modal">^*</a>} in another window Add to Citation Manager
• Climatic Zones Throughout the Ages Author(s) George W. Bain George W. Bain Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Doi: https://doi.org/10.2110/pec.63.01.0100 Abstract Open the PDF Link PDF for Climatic Zones Throughout the Ages in another window Add to Citation Manager
• Precambrian Stromatolites as Indicators of Polar Shift 1 Author(s) Stephan C. Nordeng Stephan C. Nordeng Department of Geology and Geological Engineering, Michigan College of Mining and Technology, Houghton, Michigan Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Doi: https://doi.org/10.2110/pec.63.01.0131 Abstract Open the PDF Link PDF for Precambrian Stromatolites as Indicators of Polar Shift^{<a href="javascript:;" reveal-id="ch08fn1" data-open="ch08fn1" class="link link-ref link-reveal xref-fn js-xref-fn split-view-modal">¹</a>} in another window Add to Citation Manager
• Continental Drift and Distribution Patterns in the Leafy Hepaticae Author(s) Margaret Fulford Margaret Fulford University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Doi: https://doi.org/10.2110/pec.63.01.0140 Abstract Open the PDF Link PDF for Continental Drift and Distribution Patterns in the Leafy Hepaticae in another window Add to Citation Manager
• Metastasy 1 Author(s) William Carruthers Gussow William Carruthers Gussow Union Oil Company of California, Broa, California Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Doi: https://doi.org/10.2110/pec.63.01.0146 Abstract Open the PDF Link PDF for Metastasy^{<a href="javascript:;" reveal-id="ch10fn1" data-open="ch10fn1" class="link link-ref link-reveal xref-fn js-xref-fn split-view-modal">¹</a>} in another window Add to Citation Manager
• Plates Open the PDF Link PDF for Plates in another window Add to Citation Manager
• Back Matter Open the PDF Link PDF for Back Matter in another window Add to Citation Manager
• continental drift
• paleomagnetism
• Polar wandering-continental drift
• Paleontological and mineralogical aspects

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Paleomagnetism, Polar Wander

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• First Online: 01 January 2021
• pp 1215–1225
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• Jean Besse 2 ,
• Vincent Courtillot 3 &
• Marianne Greff 3  

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Besse, J., Courtillot, V., Greff, M. (2021). Paleomagnetism, Polar Wander. In: Gupta, H.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Solid Earth Geophysics. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-58631-7_125

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polar wander noun

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What does the noun polar wander mean?

There is one meaning in OED's entry for the noun polar wander . See ‘Meaning & use’ for definition, usage, and quotation evidence.

How common is the noun polar wander ?

Where does the noun polar wander come from.

Earliest known use

The earliest known use of the noun polar wander is in the 1950s.

OED's earliest evidence for polar wander is from 1957, in Philosophical Transactions .

polar wander is formed within English, by compounding.

Etymons: polar adj. , wander n.

Nearby entries

• polaronic, adj. 1970–
• polar orbit, n. 1956–
• polar-orbiting, adj. 1958–
• polar plant, n. 1842–
• polar projection, n. 1625–
• polar reciprocal, n. 1845–
• polar star, n. 1578–
• polar surface, n. 1865–
• polar vector, n. 1903–
• polar vortex, n. 1906–
• polar wander, n. 1957–
• polar wandering, n. 1909–
• polarward, adj. & adv. 1832–
• polary, adj. 1559–1874
• polatouche, n. 1787–
• poldavy, n. 1481–
• polder, n.¹ 1602–
• polder, n.² 1704–
• polderboy, n. 1895–
• polderland, n. 1849–
• polderman, n. 1884–

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Meaning & use

Entry history for polar wander, n..

Originally published as part of the entry for polar, adj. & n.

polar wander, n. was first published in 2005.

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