THE PROBABLE SOLUTION OF THE CLIMATE PROBLEiM 



IN GEOLOGY^ 



By WiLHELM Ramsay 

 Professor of Geology and Mineralogy at the University of Helsingfors, Finland 



In the following pages I have endeavored to give an interpretation, 

 not only of the appearance of ice ages, but also of the greater changes 

 of climate registered in the geological record. In view of the im- 

 portance ascribed in this discussion to hypsometric conditions and 

 land forms, I have named the theory the relief hypothesis.^ 



Kindred explanations have been put forward before. Lyell would 

 find the causes of the great alternations of climate during past ages 

 in the continuous changes of the distribution of land and sea which 

 had been going on all through the geologic ages. J. G. Charpentier, 

 in the first half of the nineteenth century, supposed that the glacia- 

 tion of the Alps and other tracts had been greater formerly because 

 these were much more elevated. Since then various hypotheses of 

 continental elevation have been set forth as solution of the climate 

 problem in geology. It is easy to discover the weak points in these 

 suggestions and to understand why they have not been found appli- 

 cable. But there is one strong point in all of them. They have looked 

 for the causes of the geologic changes of climate in geographic 

 changes which the earth may have undergone. The relief hypothesis 

 follows the same lines. 



This theory does not explain why ancient glacial formations, 

 such as the Permian, are now found far from the poles, often near 

 the Equator. In order to understand this and other very anomalous 

 situations of climatic zones of the past, one can hardly avoid postu- 

 lating migrations of the poles or the continents. 



The question to be answered here is : 



Why have some geological periods been characterized by glaciation 

 and various other signs of cooler climate, while the earth in other 

 periods was favored with very warm climates which extended their 

 -influence apparently to all parts of the globe? 



1 Reprinted by permission from The Geological Masrazine, April, 1924. 



2 Wilhelm Ramsay, " Die Reliefhypothese zur Erkiarung der Klimaschwankuugou ;" 

 Petermanns Mitteilungen, 1911, p. 335. 



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