How was continental drift and plate tectonics “discovered”?
• Alfred Wegener – Recognized as the first person to rally a variety of lines of evidence from paleontology, geophysics, geography, geology, etc. in support of continental drift • a meteorologist/astronomer • did meteorological research in Greenland where he eventually died • Initially wondered about the matching of coastlines of Africa and America, but dropped the idea, because it seemed absurd to him. • Revived the idea after reading a paper on “land bridges” between Africa and South America to explain the distribution of some fossils • Some land bridges are likely if sea level drops a few dozen meters. For example, in the last ice age, when sea level was lower, land was exposed in several areas allowing plants and animals to disperse across them. Then they were flooded when the glaciers melted and sea level rose. However, the land bridges that some proposed to have existed across the Atlantic ocean seemed unlikely to Wegener. • Proposed continental drift in a book published in 1912
