The Ring of Death
This is a blow-up of the area of the Earth near the surface and we have exaggerated the dimensions so that you can see the crust, which rests upon a mobile layer, the asthenosphere which in turn rests upon the solid mantle. An earth crust displacement is a movement of the entire crust (including the ocean basins) over the asthenosphere. Now keep in mind that the Earth's axis does NOT change. We still have the same tilt and the same seasons but the relationship of the crust to the climatic zones is changed. In other words, the climatic zones are stable: the crust moves.
The ring of death depicted here shows the areas of globe that experienced the greatest latitude change. (North and South America, Antarctica and Siberia). It also happens that these areas experience a massive loss of animal life. The continents further away from the ring suffered less extinction. We thus have a curious paradox; namely, that there is considerable wild plant diversity up to about 45-50°N latitude in Europe, Asia and North America, and southward to 35-40°S latitude in the southern continents, apart from desert and semi-desert areas. However, only in certain areas between 45°N and 30°S latitudes were potential crop plants actually domesticated. This problem has not been solved by any plant people to date. It is noted that the centers of origin of cultivated plants occurred mostly in mountainous regions between the Tropic of Capricorn (23°28') south of the equator and about 45°N of the equator in the Old World. In the New World crop domestication occurred between the two tropics (Cancer and Capricorn) approximately. In all cases agricultural origins and primitive diversity occurred in high and complex mountain regions. Why only these? Tales of destruction of many civilizations all along the ring of death, many by great floods, are present in legends of their descendants. Mount Shasta in California is belived by the Shasta to have been a refuge for their ancestors at the time of a great flood which changed their coastline. The ancestors climbed the mountain to escape the rising ocean. And this is not the only mountain which saved humanity from the flood in native American mythology. We have two types of stories, one in which the people are already in America when the flood comes (stories like that of the Shasta) and also stories that tell of their arrival in ships that land on mountain tops. The Okanagan of British Columbia and Washington state tell us that their ancestors fled from a sinking island in the middle of the ocean. And the Haida relate how long ago their ancestors lived in the world's largest village. Life was care-free until the chief of the heavens decided to destroy humankind by changing the sky and bringing a worldwide flood. Survivors escaped in large canoes that took them to a new land where they landed on a mountain top.
