Taxacom: Galapagos and novel predictions

[John Grehan]

I have mentioned this before, but it may have been lost to recall among
other issues. The Galapgos provides a nice example I think, for the
productively of novel prediction in panbiogeography. In the 1950's Croizat
predicted that the eastern Pacific was formerly occupied by a 'galaxy' of
islands that harbored life now inherited by the Galapagos hotspot. Myer was
quite caustic about Croizat being completely wrong since there was no
geological evidence. But now tectonic specialists have found geological
evidence for the former existence of an immense island arc system (and I
mean really big as some former elements now constitute nearly half of
Mexico for example) to the west of America before it split apart from
Africa/Europe. They found evidence that before splitting, the Pacific
subduction zone was west dipping (instead of now east dipping), and so
resulted in volcanic island arcs in the Pacific. When the continent moved
west, the subduction reverse and the island arcs were accreted, along with
basement material that now resides under the continents. So his is a
corroboration of the prediction (hypothesis), and if nothing else, shows
how the panbiogeographic approach (model, method or whatever) can generate
insights concerning factual (observable) entities beyond what is already
known. Center of origin-chance dispersal biogeography does not do that - as
far as I am currently aware.

Cheers, John

-- 
https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fhepialidsoftheworld.com.au%2F&data=05%7C02%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7Ca575d3d1ad8f4fd1b9de08dcd349a830%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638617560512410177%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=tmSM3zzWwkQLhLfTl2UUtwU7Ll4IW3F2R3NqvF0%2FTSI%3D&reserved=0 (use the 'visit archived web site'
link, then the 'Ghost Moth Research page' link.