Editing Land bridge (section)

== Land bridge theory ==

[[File:Land bridges to explain Aus NZ S.Am plant groups.svg|thumb|upright=1.35|The botanist [[Joseph Dalton Hooker]], noting similarities of the floras of Australia, New Zealand, and southern South America in his six-volume ''[[Flora Antarctica]]'', published between 1844 and 1859, proposed that land bridges had once existed between these land masses.<ref name="Winkworth 2010"/>]]

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, vanished land bridges were an explanation for observed affinities of plants and animals in distant locations. Such scientists as [[Joseph Dalton Hooker]] noted puzzling geological, botanical, and zoological similarities between widely separated areas, and proposed land bridges between appropriate land masses that allowed species to spread between land masses.<ref name="Winkworth 2010">{{cite journal |last=Winkworth |first=Richard C. |title=Darwin and dispersal |journal=Biology International |volume=47 |year=2010 |pages=139–144 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258120865}}</ref><ref name=corliss>{{cite book |last=Corliss |first=William R. |author-link=William R. Corliss| title=Mysteries Beneath the Sea|publisher= Apollo Editions|date= June 1975|isbn=978-0815203735}} Chapter 5: "Up-and-Down Landbridges".</ref> In geology, the concept was first proposed by [[Jules Marcou]] in ''Lettres sur les roches du Jura  et leur distribution géographique dans les deux hémisphères'' ("Letters on the rocks of the [[Jura Mountains|Jura [Mountains] ]] and their geographic distribution in the two hemispheres"), 1857–1860.<ref name=corliss/>

Hypothesized land bridges included:<ref name=corliss/>
* ''Archatlantis'' from the West Indies to North Africa 
* ''Archhelenis'' from Brazil to South Africa
* ''Archiboreis'' in the North Atlantic
* ''Archigalenis'' from Central America through Hawaii to Northeast Asia
* ''Archinotis'' from South America to Antarctica
* ''[[Lemuria (continent)|Lemuria]]'' in the Indian Ocean

The theory of [[continental drift]] provided an alternate explanation that did not require land bridges.<ref name="Holmes 1953">{{cite journal |last=Holmes |first=Arthur |author-link=Arthur Holmes |title=Land Bridges or Continental Drift? |journal=[[Nature (journal)|Nature]] |date=18 April 1953 |pages=669-671 |url=https://www.nature.com/articles/171669a0.pdf}}</ref> However the continental drift theory was not widely accepted until the development of [[plate tectonics]] in the early 1960s, which more completely explained the motion of continents over geological time.<ref name="Pichon">{{cite journal |last=Le Pichon |first=Xavier |date=15 June 1968 |title=Sea-floor spreading and continental drift |journal=Journal of Geophysical Research |volume=73 |issue= 12 |pages=3661–97 |doi=10.1029/JB073i012p03661 |bibcode=1968JGR....73.3661L}}</ref><ref name="McK-Park">{{cite journal |last1=Mc Kenzie |first1=D. |last2=Parker |first2=R.L. |year=1967 |title=The North Pacific: an example of tectonics on a sphere |journal=Nature |volume=216 |pages=1276–1280 |doi=10.1038/2161276a0 |issue=5122 |bibcode= 1967Natur.216.1276M|s2cid=4193218}}</ref>