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Oct 19, 2023 · Continental drift describes one of the earliest ways geologists thought continents moved over time. Today, the theory of continental drift has been replaced by the science of plate tectonics. The theory of continental drift is most associated with the scientist Alfred Wegener.
Apr 15, 2024 · Alfred Wegener, German meteorologist and geophysicist who formulated the first complete statement of the continental drift hypothesis. His theory was rejected by most geologists during his lifetime but was resurrected and made a central feature of modern geology as part of the theory of plate tectonics in the 1960s.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- What is Alfred Wegener best known for?German meteorologist and geophysicist Alfred Wegener was the first person to formulate a complete statement of the continental drift hypothesis. Pr...
- What were Alfred Wegener’s contributions?Wegener noticed the similarity in the coastlines of eastern South America and western Africa and speculated that those lands had once formed a supe...
- How did Alfred Wegener impact the world?Wegener published his theory in full in 1915, but his contemporaries mostly found it implausible. By 1930 it had been rejected by most geologists,...
Apr 5, 2024 · The first truly detailed and comprehensive theory of continental drift was proposed in 1912 by Alfred Wegener, a German meteorologist. Bringing together a large mass of geologic and paleontological data, Wegener postulated that throughout most of geologic time there was only one continent, which he called Pangea.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Why Did Scientists Reject Wegener's Continental Drift Theory?
- Evolving Theories
- What Evidence Is There For Continental Drift?
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Geologists roundly denounced Wegener's continental drift theory after he published the details in a 1915 book called "The Origin of Continents and Oceans." Part of the opposition was because Wegener didn't have a good model to explain how the continents moved, something scientists later explained under the umbrella of plate tectonics — the theory t...
When Wegener proposed continental drift, many geologists were contractionists. They thought Earth's incredible mountains were created because our planet had been cooling and shrinking since its formation, Frankel said. And to account for the identical fossils discovered on continents such as South America and Africa, scientists invoked ancient land...
A map of the continents inspired Wegener's quest to explain Earth's geologic history. He was intrigued by the interlocking fit of Africa's and South America's shorelines. Wegener then assembled an impressive amount of continental drift evidence to show that Earth's continents were once connected in a single supercontinent. Wegener knew that fossil ...
Learn more about the history of continental drift and plate tectonics from the U.S. Geological Survey.Learn more about Alfred Wegener from the NASA Earth Observatory.Watch this short video on YouTube about plate tectonics and continental drift, from National Geographic.Apr 24, 2024 · Early Evidence for Continental Drift Hypothesis. Wegener’s first evidence was that some continents’ coastlines fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. People noticed the similarities in the coastlines of South America and Africa on the first world maps, and some suggested the continents had been ripped apart.
Early Evidence for Continental Drift Hypothesis. Figure 2.1.2 2.1. 2: Snider-Pellegrini’s map showing the continental fit and separation, 1858. Wegener’s first piece of evidence was that the coastlines of some continents fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
Benjamin Franklin (1782) and Ralph Waldo Emerson (1834) noted Continental Drift; A brief introduction to Plate Tectonics, based on the work of Alfred Wegener; Animation of continental drift for last 1 billion years; Maps of continental drift, from the Precambrian to the future
