Who is Alfred Wegener and what was his theory?

Wegener was a German meteorologist, geophysicist and polar researcher. In 1915 he published ‘The Origin of Continents and Oceans’, which outlined his theory of Continental Drift. Wegener was a member of four expeditions to Greenland.

What was Alfred Wegener’s theory of Pangaea?

Alfred Wegener proposed that the continents were once united into a single supercontinent named Pangaea, meaning all earth in ancient Greek. He suggested that Pangaea broke up long ago and that the continents then moved to their current positions. He called his hypothesis continental drift.

What are 3 pieces of evidence did Alfred Wegener use?

Alfred Wegener, in the first three decades of this century, and DuToit in the 1920s and 1930s gathered evidence that the continents had moved. They based their idea of continental drift on several lines of evidence: fit of the continents, paleoclimate indicators, truncated geologic features, and fossils.

What two ideas was Alfred Wegener most known for?

Why did Alfred hypothesize the existence of Pangaea?

In 1912 a German meteorologist named Alfred Wegener (1880-1931) hypothesized a single proto-supercontinent that divided up into the continents we now know because of continental drift and plate tectonics.

Where is Earth’s heat energy most concentrated?

Although heat from the center of the Earth is migrating to the surface everywhere, the heat is concentrated at the edges of tectonic plates.

What two major landmasses broke apart from Pangaea?

Pangaea begins to break up and splits into two major landmasses — Laurasia in the north, made up of North America and Eurasia, and Gondwana in the south, made up of the other continents.

What are four pieces of evidence used by Alfred?

Four fossil examples include: the Mesosaurus, Cynognathus, Lystrosaurus, and Glossopteris. Modern day representation of the Mesosaurus. The Mesosaurus is known to have been a type of reptile, similar to the modern crocodile, which propelled itself through water with its long hind legs and limber tail.

When was Alfred Wegener born and when did he die?

Written By: Alfred Wegener, in full Alfred Lothar Wegener, (born November 1, 1880, Berlin, Germany—died November 1930, Greenland), German meteorologist and geophysicist who formulated the first complete statement of the continental drift hypothesis.

What was the reaction to Alfred Wegener’s theory?

Except for a few converts, and those like Cloos who couldn’t accept the concept but was clearly fascinated by it, the international geological community’s reaction to Wegener’s theory was militantly hostile. American geologist Frank Taylor had published a similar theory in 1910, but most of his colleagues had simply ignored it.

What did Alfred Lothar Wegener do for a living?

Wegener obtained his doctorate in planetary astronomy in 1905 but soon became interested in meteorology; during his lifetime, he participated in several meteorologic expeditions to Greenland. Tenacious by nature, Wegener spent much of his adult life vigorously defending his theory of continental drift,…

How did Alfred Wegener die in the wilderness of ice?

Here Wegener also made his first acquaintance with death in a wilderness of ice when the expedition leader and two of his colleagues died on an exploratory trip undertaken with sled dogs. After his return in 1908 and until World War I, Wegener was a lecturer in meteorology, applied astronomy and cosmic physics at the University of Marburg.