Alfred Wegener’s Theory of Continental Drift

Alfred Wegener is an extremely important thinker in the development of modern plate tectonic theory. Wegener hypothesized in the early twentieth century (around 60 years before the validation of his idea), and presented his idea on 6 January 1912, that all of the continents had once been interconnected millions of years ago. Initially, he backed this reasoning by stating that the West African coastline looked like a puzzle piece that could easily link with the East Coast of South America. Through geological records, he also discovered that fossils of the same species were found in southern South America and Africa as well as similar rock formations and types in the Appalachian Mountains and the Scottish Isles. Finally in 1915 his book Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane (The Origin of Continents and Oceans) was published where he formulated a theory concerning the endogenous dynamics of the Earth and continental drift. Although he passed away in 1930 before his ideas were confirmed by science, particularly through advanced knowledge of the ocean floor which proved that underwater rifts were causing Earth’s plates to move, his ideas were imperative to the understanding of how the land masses of Earth look today and where and how species interacted millions of years ago.

Contributed by Dayton Shackelford
Course: Modern Global Environmental History
Instructor: Dr. Wilko Graf von Hardenberg
University of Wisconsin–Madison, US