Not supported, because we don’t have any reason to think the polarity of magnetite near peaks of the mid-ocean ridge are any different from earth’s current polarity. The author suggests that compass distortion occurs because some magnetite has reversed polarity. But we don’t know that magnetite found in peaks of the mid-ocean ridge are the most likely to have reversed polarity compared to magnetite found elsewhere.

Not supported, because the author never suggests polarity reversals have anything to do with the cause of the baseball seam shape of the mid-ocean ridge. We don’t have any reason to think the baseball seam shape results from the magnetic field or the direction of it. It may result simply from the shape of various weak points in the earth’s crust.

Supported. We are told that there’s evidence of a strong correlation between the ages of the earth’s magnetic reversals and the alternating magnetic striping pattern in the ocean’s floor. Remember, these stripes have different polarities based on the polarity of the earth as magma cooled. If the time intervals between the earth’s magnetic reversals change greatly, then, given the strong correlation between the reversals and the striping pattern, we can infer that different stripes are likely to have varying widths. If the time between two reversals is short, then the associated stripe between those reversals will be narrower than the stripe made during a period when two reversals are much farther apart in time.

Not supported, because the author never provides a basis to compare continental rock to oceanic rock on the reliability of their indications of magnetic field reversals. Although the author mentions that we can determine the polarity of continental rocks, we don’t know that these rocks are any more accurate as indicators of polarity compared to oceanic rock.

Not supported, because we have no reason to think the basalt within a stripe is exactly the same age. Actually, we have reason to think the basalt would involve different ages, because the basalt forms from magma rising from the earth. It would be strange if the magma within a stripe rose all at the exact same time and cooled at the exact same time.