Essay about Alfred Wegener and the Continental Drift

The first, would be Land features. Alfred Wegener saw how the coal fields in North America and Europe lined up, he also realized that mountain ranges in North America and Africa lined up. The second, evidence he used were the fossils. There were three types of fossils he found the first was the glossopteris a fern like plant found in Africa, South America, Australia, India, and Antarctica. The second and third were the Mesosaurus and the Lystrosaurus fossils, they were freshwater reptile fossils on continents separated by oceans. The third evidence Alfred Wegener used was, the climate zones. Alfred Wegener looked at the past of the climates and he found scratches in rocks from glaciers in South Africa. Those were the three main evidences Alfred Wegener used to prove Continental Drift

The plate tectonics theory was made by a German named Alfred Wegener. He stated that a single continent existed about 300 million years ago named Pangaea and that it split into two continents of Laurasia in the north and Gondwanaland in the south. Today’s continents were formed by further splitting of the two masses.

The theory of plate tectonics was first developed by Alfred Wegener. He concluded that the continents seem to have a similar shape and could potentially fit together. This suggested that they were at one time joined together as part of 2 super continents called Gondwanaland and Laurasia was in the north. This theory was said to be proven by the discovery of fossilised remains of a mesosaurus that were found on the coasts of Brazil and Gabon. Sea floor spreading is another theory that supports the idea of plate tectonics; this theory discovered that rock is being formed under the ocean as a new sea floor. Sea floor spreading was shown in the Atlantic, where it is believed the Eurasian and North American plates are moving apart on a

These ideas not only, obviously, created a new conception of the forming of the universe, but also of humanities place within it. The Copernican hypothesis had enormous religious implications as it destroyed the idea that the earth was different from where God was. This eliminated the realm of perfection. Therefore humanity’s place within the Earth was lessening in importance. Also, 1572 a “new star,” which was really an exploding star, left a huge impression on many people. This is because it contradicted the idea that the heavenly spheres were unchanging, thus

Synopsis. The Defence of Duffer’s Drift is a book in which the author, Captain Swinton , has six dreams in succession. Captain Swinton drempt that Lieutenant Backsight Forethought must defend a drift in South Africa against the enemy Boer at all cost. In each dream he overlooks or makes a mistake, which is catastrophic and costs the battle and the lives of his men. He learns from each dream the mistakes he made and carries on from dream to dream the general lesson previously learnt. In total he carries over (22 lessons) which ultimately brings him success and victory in the end.

James Hutton was the first scientist to address the Earth was millions of years old, as well as alive and is continuously being formed. Charles Lyell popularized uniformitarianism, and believed the Earth was being shaped by slow moving forces. Alfred Wegener introduced the foundation for the theory of continental drift. Wegener was one of the first to recognize and have an understanding of how the Earth works which required data and information from earth sciences. In the 1960s, the theory for the continental drift became known as the theory of plate tectonics or plate building.

Much proof of the evolution of organisms and change in the environment overall is shown through fossils. Some of the most unusual fossils found in Australia were disovered at Riversleigh. Animals such as the Lungfish show a strong development in animals as adaptations are cleary seen through, for example, the fact the the lungfish has developed, working lungs that it can us to breathe with on land unlike any other fish. The lungfish shows the tranformation of fish swimming only being ablt to live in water to fish adapting and being able to live on land whilst their body has become dry in the dry season. It shows the evolution from sealife to land life and shows inbetweens for the evolution of the creatures. There are also records of many ancestors of animals that walk the earth today. examples include primative koalas and wombats, a range of ancestral thylacines and platypus, aswe as rodents whch show the evolution of placental mammals. Many of these organisms evolved from what they were and adapted as the climate changed to suit more and became the animals we see today. many similar types of flora and fauna fossils as well as the formation of rocks are similar so due to the continental drift. the continental drift is the drifting apart of all continents from one full land mass into the locations they are currently in. all landmasses were original joined as one big land mass caled 'Pangaea', because all organisms existed on a single land mass aswell, similar fossils can be found, as can rock formations. some evidence of continental drift was that a man named Alfred Wegener went out and matched up the same rock ike a puzzle with different pieces from different parts of the world and they

Alfred the Great was born in the royal village of Want age. He was born in the year 846 A.D... He was born into a family that supposedly could trace their roots all the way back to Adam. His father was king Ethelwulf and his mother was Oostburg noble both by birth and nature. He grew up being loved by everybody around him, his family, friends and even all the people. He was more loved by the people than his older brothers. He was well educated by the court. But even though he was well educated he never got to learn what he wanted to learn the most: liberal arts. He couldn't learn this because there were no good teachers in the kingdom of the West-Saxons.

2. What was the first line of evidence that led early investigators to suspect that the continents were once connected?

Plate tectonics is the scientific theory that attempts to explain the movements of the Earth's lithosphere that have formed the landscape features we see across the globe today” (Briney). Geology defines “plate” as a large slab of solid rock, and “tectonics” is part of the Greek root word for “to build.” Together the words define how the Earth’s surface is built up of moving plates. The theory of plate tectonics dictates that individual plates, broken down into large and small sections of rock, form Earth’s lithosphere. These fragmented bodies of rock move along each other atop the Earth’s liquid lower mantle to create the plate boundaries that have shaped Earth’s landscape. Plate tectonics originated from meteorologist Alfred Wegener’s theory, developed in the early 20th century. In 1912, he realized that the east coast of South America and the west coast of Africa appeared to piece together like a jigsaw puzzle. He further examined the globe and deduced that all of Earth’s continents could somehow be assembled together and proposed the idea that the continents had once been linked in a single supercontinent called Pangaea. To explain today’s position of the continents, Wegener theorized that they began to drift apart approximately 300 million years ago. This theory

The Plate Tectonic Theory developed in the late 1960’s, when people noticed how continents either side of the Atlantic Ocean seemed to almost fit together. Francis Bacon, an English Philosopher was aware of this as early as 1620. Topographical and geological evidence built up and allowed Alfred Wegener to publish a theory in 1912, suggesting that the continents were once all joined together in a supercontinent he called Pangaea. Wegener proposed that at some time, the land masses had drifted apart until they occupied their current positions on the globe. There was lots of evidence to support his theory including

Nicholas Copernicus was the first to question the universal truths and teachings of the church. He devised a theory that the earth along with the other planets revolved around the sun. This theory disagreed with Aristotle and the old teachings that the universe revolved around the earth, and that man was the center of the universe.

Charles Lyell was a British lawyer and one the smartest geologist known in his time. He was known as the author of the Principles of Geology, which helped popularize the theories and concepts of uniformitarianism. The Principles of Geology was the first book written by Lyell and explained the changes of the earth’s surface. He used the research and information in the book as his proof to determine that the earth was over 6,000 years old. The central argument in his book was “the present is the key to the past”, this meant that to find out what happened in the past you had to look at what was happening now. It explained that changes which happened in the past, were happening in the present, and will happen in the future.

After that theory scientists started Wondering about this theory and a lot of Scientists made up Models and conducted Experiments to Explain this Theory. In this report we will put our self’s inside Each scientist’s Shoe and see What has he discovered.

However, Wegener believed that only the continents were moving and they plowed through the rocks of the ocean basins. (Colliers Encyclopedia, 1996) Harold Jeffreys then argued that it is impossible for continents to break through solid rock without breaking apart. (USGS, 2012) Wegener also claimed that the centrifugal force of the spinning planet had forced the continents sideways, parallel to the equator; tidal pull from the sun and moon had caused lateral movement. (Sant, Joseph, 2012) His orders of magnitude were too weak. Thus, his theory was dismissed. (Lois Van Wagner, 2013)