Alfred Wegener Pangea And The Evidence For Continental

Alfred Wegener, Pangea, And The Evidence For Continental Drift. Tyler Young Amesbury 4 th Sep. 21, 2015

Alfred Wegener • Alfred Lothar Wegener (nov, 1, 1880 - 1930) was a German polar researcher, geophysicist and meteorologist. • He is most remembered as the original theorist of theory of continental drift by hypothesizing that the continents are slowly drifting around the Earth. • His theory was disproved due to his “non-popularity” and the scientists that had disproved him were some of the greatest geophysical minds of the century.

Pangea • Pangea is theory that all the continents were once (millions of years ago) all perfectly put together as one giant land mass and after millions of more years they had separated and detached from each other. • Pangea cant exactly be “proved” but theories strong point is that all the continents seem to fit to each other like a puzzle piece. • Other points to theory were the fossils from millions of years old animals, rocks, insects, etc. found on complete opposite sides of the world and if it weren’t for Pangea these fossils would have to swim thousands of miles across oceans and seas and that seems unlikely.

Evidence of Continental Drift • As stated before 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. • For example, the rock layers that form the Appalachian mountains of the Eastern U. S. matched with those in Scotland. Rocks in Alaska contain fossil palm tree leaves, though there have not been palm trees at that area for a very long time so, he stated that the continents must “drift” around the Earth, sometimes colliding with each other.

Convection, Conduction, and Radiation • 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. Plate tectonics a major theory explaining the way our planet operates and moves about