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By the 1960s, scientists had amassed enough evidence to support the missing mechanism—namely, seafloor spreading—for Wegener’s hypothesis of continental drift to be accepted as the theory of plate tectonics. Ongoing GPS and earthquake data analyses continue to support this theory.
Aug 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.
Alfred Wegener collected diverse pieces of evidence to support his theory, including geological “fit” and fossil evidence. It is important to know that the following specific fossil evidence was not brought up by Wegener to support his theory.
Nov 4, 2022 · German scientist Alfred Wegener spent most of his life defending a shocking theory: that all the world’s continents were once part of the same land mass before they drifted away. For many years after he passed, his theory continued to be shunned, ridiculed, and labelled as pseudoscience.
- Why Did Scientists Reject Wegener's Continental Drift Theory?
- Evolving Theories
- What Evidence Is There For Continental Drift?
- Additional Resources
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.Feb 1, 1975 · Alfred Wegener and the Hypothesis of Continental Drift. Sixty years ago a German scientist argued that the continents move, and he proposed a history of their migrations. The validity of his...
Mar 7, 2024 · Plate tectonics explains why Earth’s continents are moving; the theory of continental drift did not provide an explanation. Therefore, the theory of plate tectonics is more complete. It has gained widespread acceptance among scientists.
