Considering that most geology, including plate tectonics, assumes typically slow movements over gigantic periods of time, when the typical rates of lava production and flow are considered, the question arises:

What paleomagnetic evidence could--actually or hypothetically--serve to support the possibility of wide-spread global events involving very abrupt continental movements?

Magnetism is also used to determine the age and rate of sea-floor expansion (and therefore plate expansion). Logically, areas nearest sea-floor openings would have to be more recent, while those furthest away would have to be much older, more ancient. But assumptions about the age of expansion(s) are directly connected to assumptions about speed of expansion(s).

One college textbook explains one typical way to figure things out: "Rates of seafloor spreading can be found very simply by dating rocks at different distances from the spreading ridge and dividing the distance moved by the rock's age (the time it has taken to move that distance from the ridge at which it formed."

What paleomagnetic evidence could--actually or hypothetically--serve to support that possibility that, under certain circumstances, sea-floor spreading could be vastly accelerated, having specific and profound global effects on both water and land masses.

Of course, behind all issues related to time is the set of assumptions and extrapolations that result in dating past events in units of millions of years. Some of those underlying assumptions are anti-catastrophic. Ultimately, they can easily result in circular thinking: things can't happen fast because they happen slowly

 

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