Alfred Wegener (1880-1930) was a German scientist, geophysicist and meteorologist, best known for his theory of continental drift (1912), which hypothesized that the continents were slowly drifting around the Earth. Unfortunately, he was not able to demonstrate a mechanism for it and his hypothesis was only accepted in the 1950s, when numerous discoveries provided evidence of continental drift.
After studying for a Ph.D. in astronomy, Wegener started to concentrate on monitoring weather patterns in extreme climates like Greenland. He was fascinated by the possibility that America and Africa had been joined at one time, and proposed that the two continents simply drifted apart. His later idea led to the understanding that the Earth’s surface is made of a number of separate plates.
He married Else Köppen, daughter of the Wladimir Köppen, a prominent Russian-born geographer, meteorologist, climatologist and botanist. They had three daughters.
Wegener’s acquaintances included Wladimir Köppen (his father-in-law) and Johann Peter Koch.
Wegener’s Theory of Continental Drift / Drifting Continents
While carrying out research into weather conditions in 1911, he came across a scientific paper that listed fossils of identical plants and animals found in opposite sides of the Atlantic. This had great impact on him.
The existing theory was that the two continents must at some point been linked by a land-bridge, which eroded over the years. Wegener was not convinced that that the land-bridges sunk from erosion. Instead, he studied the shapes of the African and South American coastlines, and was amazed to find that they would fit together if the continents were cut out from a map.
Wegener's theory was previously spotted by earlier scientists, including:
- Abraham ortel Ortelius – Flemish mapmaker who suggested that the continents had been ripped apart by floods and earthquakes (1596)
- Francis Bacon – English philosopher and statesman, who had similar ideas as Wegener's.
- Antonio Snider-Pelligrini - French scientist, who showed in his book, Creation and its Mysteries Revealed, how the continents had been fitted together before Noah’s flood.
As he continued his observations, Wegener found that the Appalachian Mountains of eastern North America shared remarkable similarities with the Scottish Highlands, and the distinctive form of strata in the Karroo system of South Africa were identical to those of Santa Catalina in Brazil. He thought that the rock masses simply migrated from all these.
By 1915, Wegener published a book The Origin of Continents and Oceans based on his collected evidence. He proposed that some 300 million years ago there was one continent, which he called Pangaea (derived from the Greek for “all the earth”) which had fragmented.
Unfortunately, most geologists dismissed his ideas as mere speculation since Wegener could not find a sufficient mechanism to prove his theory.
From Wegener’s Continental Drift to Earth’s Plate Tectonics
More than two decades after Wegener’s death, new technologies allowed people to study ocean floors in-depth. The discovery of a ridge running down the middle of the Atlantic Ocean produced the missing segment in Wegener’s theory. The ridge, caused by molten rock forcing up from beneath the Earth’s crust, creates a new ocean floor that pushes the continents apart.
From this development, Wegener’s model of “continental drift” changed to the idea that the Earth’s surface is made of plates. The concept is that, in some places, these plates are forced apart, while in others they crush into each other, forming mountains or other landforms.
Insight to Alfred Wegener
A geologist and meteorologist, Wegener is best known for his theory of continental drift explained in his book The Origin of Continents and Oceans. He was also an arctic explorer known for his expeditions to Greenland. He died in one of these expeditions while trying to reach the camp on the west coast of Greenland.
His wife, Elsa Köppen Wegener, who wrote a biography of her father, also recorded Alfred’s last exploration in her book, Alfred Wegener’s Last Journey to Greenland.
Some of his honors and awards include the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany. It awards the Wegener Medal in his name, the crater Wegener on the Moon and crater Wegener on Mars, the asteroid 29227 Wegener and the Wegener peninsula in Greenland where he died.
Sources:
Farndon, John and Alex Woolf, Anne Rooney and Liz Gogerly. The Great Scientist. Capella, 2005.
Moore, Pete. E=MC²: The Great Ideas That Shaped Our World. London: Quintet Publishing, 2002.
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