Abstract of paper presented at American Geophysical Union 1980 Fall Meeting, San Francisco, California.
Trans. American Geophysical Union (Eos), v. 61, p. 1110.

Quasi-periodic polar wandering on Earth and Mars?

D. R. Van Alstine, Sierra Geophysics, Inc.

A speculative synthesis is presented of the Phanerozoic apparent polar wander path for North America and an inferred north polar wander path for Mars. It has been proposed that quasi-circular features in the Martian polar regions might represent margins of nearly circular caps that had formed symmetrically about the poles. If this interpretation is correct, then a polar wander path for Mars can be derived by connecting the centers of curvature of successive margins of the polar caps. The Martian north polar wander path so obtained exhibits two major changes in direction during a time interval estimated as between 50 and 500 million years. These two bends in the Martian north polar wander path are reminiscent of the "hairpin" bends that occur about every 100 to 130 million years in the Phanerozoic apparent polar wander path for North America. This unexpected similarity suggests that a highly ordered form of true polar wandering occurs on Earth and Mars as a consequence of a physical process common to both planets. An oscillatory form of mantle convection may excite quasi-periodic polar wandering on Earth and Mars.