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History of views on the relative positions of Antarctica and South America: A 100-year tango between Patagonia and the Antarctic Peninsula

H. Miller
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Abstract

Discussion of continental drift around Antarctica began nearly 100 years ago. While the Gondwana connections of Antarctica to Africa and Australia have been well defined for decades, the relative pre-drift positions of the Antarctic Peninsula and Patagonia continue to be subjects of controversy. Certainly older figures, which showed a paleo-position of the Peninsula crossing over continental crust of the Falkland Plateau or even South Africa or Patagonia, are out of consideration now. But contradictory opinions remain over the relative paleo-position of the Peninsula as a more or less straight prolongation of the Patagonian Andes, versus a position parallel to Patagonia along the Pacific coast. Geological reasons are found for both opinions, but geophysical observations on the adjacent ocean floors, particularly the evolution of the Weddell Sea crust, speak for the last-mentioned reconstruction.

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H. Miller. 2007. History of views on the relative positions of Antarctica and South America: A 100-year tango between Patagonia and the Antarctic Peninsula. https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20071047srp041

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