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The continental drift hypothesis was developed in the early part of the 20 th century, mostly by Alfred Wegener. Wegener said that continents move around on Earth’s surface and that they were once joined together as a single supercontinent. While Wegener was alive, scientists did not believe that the continents could move.
Continental drift. Continental drift is the movement of the Earth's continents relative to each other. The hypothesis that continents 'drift' was first put forward by Abraham Ortelius in 1596 and was fully developed by Alfred Wegener in 1912. However, it was not until the development of the theory of plate tectonics in the 1960s, that a ...
Causes of Continental Drift. The causes of continental drift are perfectly explained by the plate tectonic theory. The earth’s outer shell is composed of plates that move a little bit every year. Heat coming from the interior of the earth triggers this movement to occur through convection currents inside the mantle.
Dec 16, 2019 · Continental Drift Theory (Alfred Wegener, 1922) Plate Tectonics – Breakup of Pangea. Alfred Wegener suggested continental Drift Theory in the 1920’s. According to Continental Drift Theory there existed one big landmass which he called Pangaea which was covered by one big ocean called Panthalassa. A sea called Tethys divided the Pangaea into ...
Continental Drift. (p95 red book, 182 in Sciencesaurus) Theory that continents were once part of a single landmass that broke apart and have moved to their present locations. • can drift apart from one another and have done so in the past. For more information about what the continents looked like throughout the Earth’s History go to:
However, in the 1950s, evidence started to trickle in that made continental drift a more viable idea. By the 1960s, scientists had amassed enough evidence to support the missing mechanism—namely, seafloor spreading—for Wegener’s hypothesis of continental drift to be accepted as the theory of plate tectonics.
Wegener thought continental drift was the key to these climatic puzzles, so he and Vladimir Koppen plotted ancient deserts, jungles, and ice sheets on paleogeographic maps based on Wegener's theory. Suddenly the pieces of the puzzles fell into place, producing simple, plausible pictures of past climates.
