By Alfred Wegener

Born on November 1,
1880, Alfred Lothar
Wegener earned a Ph.D
in astronomy from the
University of Berlin in
1904. Wegener made
several key
contributions to
meteorology: he
pioneered the use of
balloons to track air
circulation, and wrote a
textbook that became
standard throughout
Germany
• Like certain other scientists before him,
Wegener became impressed with the
similarity in the coastlines of eastern
South America and Western Africa and
speculated that those lands had been
once joined together. In about 1910 he
began toying with the idea that in the
Late Paleozoic era (about 250 million
years ago)all the present-day continents
had formed a single large mass, or
supercontinent, which had subsequently
broken apart.
• Theory that continents were
once part of a single landmass
that broke apart and have
moved to their present
locations.
• Wegener postulated that about 200
million years ago this supercontinent
that he called “Pangaea,” (which means
“all the Earth” in Greek) began to break
up.
• Over millions of years the pieces
separated, first into two smaller
supercontinents during the Jurassic
period, called Laurasia and
Gondwanaland, and then by the end of
the Cretaceous period, into the
continents we know today.
• Wegener first presented his ideas in
1912, and then published them in
1915 in his controversial book, The
Origins of Continents and Oceans,
which was received with great
skepticism, and even hostility.
• Reaction to Wegener's theory was
almost uniformly hostile, and often
exceptionally harsh and scathing;
• Dr. Rollin T. Chamberlin of the University
of Chicago said, "Wegener's hypothesis
in general is of the footloose type, in that
it takes considerable liberty with our
globe, and is less bound by restrictions
or tied down by awkward, ugly facts than
most of its rival theories." Part of the
problem was that Wegener had no
convincing mechanism for how the
continents might move.
 Scientists thought this theory
was outrageous for, he didn’t have the
answers to what force (engine)
“floated the plates”. He was laughed
at and did not live to see his theory
accepted.
• the theory of continental drift has strong
points of evidence one being the physical
feature, how all of the continents, for the
most part, fit together like puzzle pieces
for example, Africa and South America.
2. Fossil Correlation
• Fossils are remains of living things
that lived long ago.
• Wegner noticed that plant and
animal fossils were found on
different continents.
• An example would be a mesosaurus.
Remains of Mesosaurus, a
freshwater crocodile-like reptile
that lived during the early Permian
(between 286 and 258 million years
ago), are found solely in Southern
Africa and Eastern South America.
• Huge belts of rocks found north
eastern United States and Northern
Europe were identical. Not only
were they the same, but they would
match up (age, thickness, types) if
the continents were put together.
• A glacier is a persistent body
of dense ice that is constantly
moving under its own weight;
it forms where the
accumulation of snow
exceeds its ablation over
many years, often centuries.
Glacial Striation
Glacial striations are scratches or gouges
cut into bedrock by glacial abrasion.
If you look in the present day, tropical
rainforests of South America and Africa
you’ll find glacial striations.
• This suggests that that those
continents weren’t always in
their tropical regions like they
are now. They were once down
near the south pole or high
above the north pole where it
was cold enough to have glaciers
and since drifted apart.
• Bituminous coal is mid-rank type of
coal and a black fossil fuel. It is also
the most abundant type of coal. The
carbon content of bituminous coal is
approximately 80%. And it is mostly
made of compacted plant remains.
Imagine plants like these dying and
being compacted over millions and
millions of years to form coal.
• Now let us look at this, coal is made
from tropical plants yet it is found in
Antarctica, in Northern Europe,
Northern Asia, and in the Southern
tip of Africa, Australia, and in the
Northern United States.
• These are not tropical climates yet
they have coal which is evidence of a
past tropical climate.
•And so this just like
the glaciers suggest
that the continents
have moved over
time.
And so with these 4
evidences, Wegener
published his book.
The Origin of Continents
and Ocean
In which he laid down
his case. Suggesting
that all the continents
were once connected
in a super continent
called Pangeae which
existed about 250
million years ago. And
since the continents
have ripped apart into
the present day
landmasses that we
know so well.
Later in his life Wegener went on
an expedition to the North Pole to
gather more evidence to support
his theory of continental drift
On a very cold, dark, stormy day
Wegener set out on an expedition to
gather food for his colleagues. And he
never was heard from again
Wegener died of
exposure and is
frozen in ice.
And his body is
actually still
there today
frozen. He never
did get to see his
life’s work come
to fruition
• The answer is yes. The plates of the
Earth are in relative motion that
ultimately depends on the circulation of
Platic rock in the deep Earth.
• The Earth has amalgmated into
supercontinents every now and then in a
quasi-periodic cycle called the
Supercontinent cycle.
And it is actually happening right now North
America is colliding with Eurasia both on
the east and the west as the 2 continents
drift north to close the Arctic
But Still 1
Question
Remains!
 What Force was
Making the
Continents Move?
• Wegener suggested that perhaps the
rotation of the Earth caused the
continents to drift.
• During convection magma rises and
spreads the sea floor. At the boundary
between the plates, the ocean floor sinks,
but at the same time is pushing against the
continents. At the plates move, most of the
geological structures and events we are
familiar with occur, including earthquakes
and volcanoes.
• Today we know that
the continents rest on
massive slabs of rock
called tectonic plates.
The plates are always
moving and
interacting in a process
we call….