Evidence for the Emergence of the Hercynian Front on the North American Continent

1975 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 1474-1479 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norman Z. Cherkis ◽  
Henry S. Fleming ◽  
James V. Massingill ◽  
Robert H. Feden

Recent marine seismic reflection, bathymetric and magnetic measurements made across the Charlie Gibbs Fracture Zone have clearly shown that the fracture zone extends to the east of 17 °west longitude. Projections to the west of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge extend the fracture zone to the North American Continental margin northeast of Newfoundland. Projection of the structural trends of the Hercynian Front from the European continental margin offer a remarkable linearity with the Charlie Gibbs Fracture Zone on the west. Remnants of the Hercynian Front have been identified in New Brunswick. Flemish Cap, which foundered during the initial phase of the latest opening of the Atlantic is believed to have been located on the fracture zone's southern edge, before drifting southeasterly to its present position. The alignment of the Hercynian Front with the Charlie Gibbs Fracture Zone is linked up on the North American continent and is offered as a possible clue to the pre-drift configuration of the Laurasian continent.

Author(s):  
P. J. Marshall

William Burke gained the very desirable office of Secretary in the new regime established in the French island of Guadeloupe after the British conquest of 1758. The autonomy guaranteed to the French population under the terms of Guadeloupe’s surrender, however, limited the pecuniary advantages which he could obtain there. For much of his tenure he was in Britain, where he orchestrated a vigorous campaign for Guadeloupe to be turned into a permanent British colony. In his pamphlets, William, assisted by Edmund, argued cogently for greater value to be attached to gains in the Caribbean than to territorial aggrandizement on the North American continent. He was opposed by Benjamin Franklin among others. Whatever their merits, William’s arguments could not overturn long-established strategic priorities, in which new acquisitions in the West Indies did not feature highly. Guadeloupe went back to France in 1763 and William lost his office.


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