In 1912, he presented the idea of "continental displacement"-which would later become known as "continental drift"-to explain how the continents moved toward and away from one another throughout the Earth's history. However, he had always been interested in geophysics, and also became fascinated with the developing fields of meteorology and.
Born on November 1, 1880, Alfred Lothar Wegener earned a Ph.D in astronomy from the University of Berlin in 1904.
He eventually articulated the idea that all of the Earth's continents were at one time connected into one large supercontinent. And the man who first proposed this theory was a brilliant interdisciplinary scientist, Alfred Wegener. In 1911, Wegener also came across several scientific documents stating there were identical fossils of plants and animals on each of these continents. German meteorologist Alfred Wegener first presented the concept of Pangea (meaning all lands) along with the first comprehensive theory of continental drift, the idea that Earth. He had noticed, in 1910, that the eastern coast of South America and the northwestern coast of Africa looked as if they were once connected. Pangea’s existence was first proposed in 1912, however, well before the invention of these tools and the development of the modern theory of plate tectonics. During his time at the university, Wegener developed an interest in the ancient history of the Earth's continents and their placement. However, within a few decades that was all to change.Shortly after receiving his Ph.D., Wegener began teaching at the University of Marburg in Germany, and in 1910 he drafted his "Thermodynamics of the Atmosphere," which would later become an important meteorological textbook. At the time of his death, his ideas were tentatively accepted by only a small minority of geologists, and soundly rejected by most. Alfred Wegener died in Greenland in 1930 while carrying out studies related to glaciation and climate. This new theoryplate tectonicsalso explained that earthquakes and tsunamis occur when two plates rub against one another, and that when they collide head-on, large mountain ranges are formed. It was quickly shown that these forces were far too weak to move continents, and without any reasonable mechanism to make it work, Wegener’s theory was quickly dismissed by most geologists of the day. Wegener proposed that the continents were like icebergs floating on heavier crust, but the only forces that he could invoke to propel continents around were poleflucht, the effect of Earth’s rotation pushing objects toward the equator, and the lunar and solar tidal forces, which tend to push objects toward the west. But the most serious problem of all was that Wegener could not conceive of a good mechanism for moving the continents around. However, despite his range of evidence, the continental fits were not perfect and the geological match-ups were not always consistent (while the continental fit left some gaps when using the current coastline, it was demonstrated in the 1960s that using a 500 m depth contour gives a much tighter fit). He revised this book several times up to 1929, and it was translated into French, English, Spanish, and Russian. Wegener first published his ideas in 1912 in a short book called Die Entstehung der Kontinente ( The Origin of Continents), and then in 1915 in Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane ( The Origin of Continents and Oceans). Continental drift (plate tectonics) The theory of continental drift was proposed at the beginning of the last century by German scientist Alfred Wegener. The theory was proposed by geophysicist and meteorologist Alfred Wegener in 1912, but was. \) Extent of glaciation (shaded area) on Pangaea (Modified by PW from Steven Earle, “Physical Geology”). Plate tectonic theory had its roots in Alfred Wegeners erroneous continental drift theory (1915) but since the 1950s, geologic and geophysical evidence has. Continental drift was a revolutionary theory explaining that continents shift position on Earth's surface.
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