Paleomagnetism, first perceived in 1906, eventually confirmed what the paleoclimatologists and paleontologists had been saying about the latitudes of origins of rocks, but it did not resolve the mystery of the phenomenon, because there seemed to be two equally reasonable explanations. Either the rock had moved (and continents with it) or the whole earth had rolled, like a child’s top slowly turning on its side, and the poles and equator had wandered. Either the equator had gone to Minnesota or Minnesota had gone to the equator.
