Go North, Young Continent
It is now being suggested that much of the land in Alaska, like its population, drifted in from elsewhere. The first serious suggestion of this sort was made in 1972 by graduate student Duane Packer and Professor David Stone of the University of Alaska. Based upon the orientation of magnetic particles in rocks formed 160 million years ago, they suggested that southern Alaska had moved from a more southerly latitude to its present location, arriving a few tens of millions of years ago.
Later, in 1974, Packer and Stone reaffirmed their idea and evolved the concept of "Baha Alaska." According to this idea, the Alaska Peninsula used to be aligned parallel to the west coast of North America in a configuration much like that of Baha California today. From such a position the Alaska Peninsula would have rotated and moved north to reach its present location.
More recently, geologists of the U. S. Geological Survey suggested that a large block of land named Wrangellia formed near the equator and sailed northward to form Alaska's Wrangell Mountains as well as parts of the Canadian Queen Charlotte Islands and perhaps even parts of Oregon, Washington and Idaho. They suggest that Wrangellia's trip north started 200 million years ago and was completed 100 million years.
The very latest bit of evidence comes from fossil palm fronts found near the Malaspina Glacier in southern Alaska. According to U. S. Geological Survey paleobotanist Jack A, Wolfe, the fossil palm and other similar large-leafed tropical plants can grow only in a tropical climate where it is not only warm, but where the daily allocation of sunlight does not change much through the year.
Since Dr. Wolfe's palm fronds were formed about 50 million years ago, southern Alaska's northern journey must have taken place since then. This recent timing of the trip is in agreement with the Baha Alaska concept of Packer and Stone, but does not seem to fit well with the postulated earlier trek of ancient Wrangellia. Time will tell which it either idea is correct.
