What was Alfred Wegener hypothesis?
Wegener’s continental drift theory introduced the idea of moving continents to geoscience. He proposed that Earth must have once been a single supercontinent before breaking up to form several different continents.
What is the hypothesis of continental?
After reviewing the scientific literature, he published a hypothesis stating the continents were originally connected and then drifted apart. While he did not have the precise mechanism worked out, his hypothesis was backed up by a long list of evidence.
What did Wegener call his hypothesis?
Theory of Continental Drift
Wegener and His Theory of Continental Drift That Broke With Geologists. If there were a “geographical forecast”, analogous to the predictions of meteorologists, it would show how over the next 100 million years the Atlantic Ocean will continue to expand, until it is much larger than the Pacific.
Was Alfred Wegener’s hypothesis of continental drift correct?
Although Wegener’s evidence was sound, most geologists at the time rejected his hypothesis of continental drift. Scientists argued that there was no way to explain how solid continents could plow through solid oceanic crust.
What did Wegener hypothesize happened to the continents?
Wegener’s Continental Drift Hypothesis Alfred Wegener suggested that continental drift occurred as continents cut through the ocean floor, in the same way as this icebreaker plows through sea ice. Wegener put his idea and his evidence together in his book The Origin of Continents and Oceans, first published in 1915.
What was Wegener’s evidence for his theory?
The four pieces of evidence for the continental drift include continents fitting together like a puzzle, scattering ancient fossils, rocks, mountain ranges, and the old climatic zones’ locations.
How did Alfred Wegener get his theory out?
Alfred Wegener, German meteorologist and geophysicist who formulated the first complete statement of the continental drift hypothesis. His theory was rejected by most geologists during his lifetime but was resurrected and made a central feature of modern geology as part of the theory of plate tectonics in the 1960s.
What did Wegener said about his hypothesis?
Wegener had a lot of evidence to support his hypothesis. But he had a problem. The problem was that he could not explain how the continents could move through the oceans. He suggested that continental drift occurred like an icebreaker plows through sea ice ( Figure below ).
How did Alfred Wegener support his theory?
What Five Factors Did Wegener Use to Support His Theory? In proposing the theory of continental drift, Alfred Wegener relied on evidence from the shape of the continents, the distribution of plants and animals, similarities between landscapes, contiguous veins of ore that ran between continents, and the distribution of glacial deposits.
What did Alfred Wegener use support his theory?
Alfred Wegener collected diverse pieces of evidence to support his theory, including geological “fit” and fossil evidence. This indicates that these continents had to be once joined together because the extensive oceans between these land masses act as a type of barrier for fossil transfer.