A notable consequence of the flooding of the continental regions is an emergence of giant cyclonic eddies, driven by the Earths rotation, that circulate over the flooded continents.
29 These water currents are similar in origin to the jet streams in the atmosphere and display comparable velocities of several tens of meters per second. Such currents have the power and scale to transport and distribute the quantities of sediment required to form the thick and laterally extensive sediment blankets that characterize the Paleozoic and Mesozoic portions of the continental sediment record. Since their velocities exceed the threshold for cavitation, these eddies also have considerable erosive power, sufficient for example to erode thousands of meters of crystalline rock from continental shield regions, as the field evidence indicates has occurred. Other sediment sources include the pelagic material scraped from subducting ocean plates at continent margins. In addition to clay this pelagic inventory would contain halite, gypsum, and other salts formed by rapid evaporation of seawater at the base of the steam jets.