© Lloyd

Charles, the following info on magnetic striping is from this Google Book: "The Biblical Basis for Modern Science: The Revised and Updated Classic". I'm inclined to disagree with you offhand that the striping is a real feature on seafloors, or that much continental drift occurred after the initial sliding. I don't think the "drift" now is over a few cm/yr. Let's say 10 cm/yr. That times 5,000 yr = 50,000 cm = 500 m. Almost nothing. What's the maximum distance that one ratcheting event could move the North American plate? And how many ratcheting events are possible per year at a maximum?

Here's a couple pages from the Google Book.