Alpine serpentinites, oceanic ridges, and continental drift

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Abstract
Summary It is suggested that Alpine serpentinites are not a characteristic of eugeo-synclinal mountain development, but represent a special case in which the leading edge of a drifting continental mass overrode an oceanic ridge. Serpentinites younger than Caledonian are overwhelmingly of Mesozoic age, and essentially contemporaneous with the latest principal episode of continental drift. Furthermore, they occupy the leading edges of continental blocks which must have been moving during that episode. Older serpentinite belts of comparable proportions may reflect geosynclinal seaways originally wide enough to accommodate oceanic ridges. The Baltic-Breton and Siberian continents must in that case have drifted westward (with respect to their present alignments) in early Caledonian time, and Australia eastward in early Hercynian. The principal episode of Mesozoic drift is thought to have occurred during Triassic and Jurassic times, and not during Jurassic and Cretaceous.