Atlantic Currents Research Articles

Reconstruction of the Antillean continent

Introduction. For decades a vague impression has existed that some kind of continental extension formerly united the West Indies to the mainland of one or the other of the continents, or to both, and that the exclusion of the Atlantic currents and the admission of the Pacific waters into the Mexican gulf and Caribbean sea have at some time prevailed. Suggestions have been made as to the necessity of a foreign source for the mechanical sediments found in the islands which do not possess the geological quarries for the supply of such materials. Wallace* has illustrated how the Antillean lands would be extended if the region were uniformly raised 6,000 feet. The charts of Agassiz* and others show the positions of the submerged basins. Geologists have demonstrated the great changes of level to which the Caribbean region has been subjected, but I am not aware that any geologist has