Alfred Wegener

Scientist or Pseudoscientist?
Visionary
Alfred Wegener's greatest
contribution to the scientific
world was his ability to weave
seemingly dissimilar,
unrelated facts into a theory,
which was remarkably
visionary for the time.
Wegener was one of the first to
realize that an understanding
of how the Earth works
required input and knowledge
from all the earth sciences.
 Alfred Wegener Biography
Wegener's scientific Like others before him,
vision sharpened in 1914 Wegener had been
as he was recuperating struck by the
in a military hospital remarkable fit of the
from an injury suffered coastlines of South
America and Africa.
as a German soldier
But, unlike the others, to
during World War I.
support his theory
While bed-ridden, he
had ample time to
develop an idea that had
intrigued him for years.
 Alfred Wegener Biography
Wegener sought out many
other lines of geologic and
paleontologic evidence
that these two continents
were once joined. During
his long convalescence,
Wegener was able to fully
develop his ideas
into the Theory of
Continental Drift, detailed
in a book titled Die
Entstehung der Kontinente
und Ozeane (in German,
The Origin of Continents
and Oceans) published in
1915.
 Alfred Wegener Biography
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,
which was severely attacked from the start and never
gained acceptance in his lifetime. Despite
overwhelming criticism from most leading geologists,
who regarded him as a mere meteorologist and
outsider meddling in their field, Wegener did not back
down but worked even harder to strengthen his theory
 Wegener's theory
Based in part on what appeared to him to be the remarkable fit
of the South American and African continents, first noted
by Abraham Ortelius three centuries earlier. Wegener was
also intrigued by the occurrences of unusual geologic
structures and of plant and animal fossils found on the
matching coastlines of South America and Africa, which
are now widely separated by the Atlantic Ocean. He reasoned
that it was physically impossible for most of these organisms
to have swum or have been transported across the vast oceans.
To him, the presence of identical fossil species along the
coastal parts of Africa and South America was the most
compelling evidence that the two continents were once joined.
 Continental Drift
Ideas of Alfred Wegener
• Fit of Africa and South America
• Features common to southern continents:
– rock types and ages
– Glaciation of late Paleozoic age
– Similar Permo-Triassic fossils
• Plants - Glodsopteris
• Reptiles - Mesosaurus
Physical Features of the Earth
Major Physical Features of Earth

Fig. 1.13
Land of 200 Million Years Ago
Fit of South America and Africa
Permian Glaciation
Long swim for Mesosaurus
Why they didn’t have to
swim or float
 Continental Drift
Ideas of Alfred Wegener

• Paleo-Climatic evidence
- Either continents had a different
orientation with respect to the poles in the
past.
• Or, the poles have wandered.
 Wegener’s Downfall:
Lack of a Mechanism

• Support from the southern continents

• Some acceptance in Europe
• Almost total skepticism in N.A.
• Condemnation by American geophysicists.
NO MECHANISM!!!
Alfred Wegener
"Utter, damned rot!" said the president of
the prestigious American Philosophical
Society.
"If we are to believe [this] hypothesis, we
must forget everything we have learned
in the last 70 years and start all over
again," said another American scientist.
Anyone who "valued his reputation for
scientific sanity" would never dare
support such a theory, said a British
geologist.
Thus did most in the scientific
community ridicule the concept that
would revolutionize the earth sciences
and revile the man who dared to
propose it, German meteorological
pioneer and polar explorer Alfred
Wegener. Science historians compare his
story with the tribulations of Galileo.
The Wrath of Science
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. Wegener's more cogent
and comprehensive work, however,
was impossible to ignore and ignited
a firestorm of rage and rancor.
Moreover, most of the blistering
attacks were aimed at Wegener
himself, an outsider who seemed to be
attacking the very foundations of
geology.
 Wegener’s Proposed Mechanisms
Why do the continents “plow around on the earth’s mantle”?

• The tides move the continents.

• Centrifugal force from the earth spinning. “Flight from the

poles”

• "It is probable the complete solution of the problem of the

forces will be a long time coming," he predicted in his last
(1929) revision.

• Bottom line, there was no reasonable mechanism.

 Testimonials
Wegener noted, however, that one thing was certain:

“The forces which displace continents are the same as

those which produce great fold-mountain ranges.
Continental drift, faults and compressions, earthquakes,
volcanicity, [ocean] transgression cycles and [apparent]
polar wandering are undoubtedly connected on a grand
scale.”

Wegener's final revison cited supporting evidence from many fields,

including testimonials from scientists who found his hypothesis resolved
difficulties in their disciplines much better than the old theories.
Fossil and Geological Evidence
Fossils and geologic evidence show that most of the
continents used to have startlingly different climates than
they do today. 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. Evidence of the Permo-Carboniferous ice-
age era that peaked some 280 million years ago, for
example, was scattered over almost half the Earth, including
the hottest deserts. On Wegener's map, however, it clustered
neatly around the South Pole—because Africa, Antarctica,
Australia, and India had once comprised a Southern
Hemisphere supercontinent (Gondwanaland).
 Geopoetry
• Unfortunately, though Wegener's explanation of
the Permo-Carboniferous ice age impressed even
his critics, the merit of much of the rest of his
supporting evidence was not widely recognized at
the time. As a result, most geologists eventually
dismissed his theory as a fairy tale or "mere
geopoetry."
 Why is Continental Drift/Plate Tectonics
Accepted Today?

• Is it because scientists suddenly became more

open minded? NO!!!!

• It is because new evidence emerged which

strongly supports his theory.

• It is because a believable mechanism emerged.

 Paleomagnetism and the
Revival of Continental Drift
Nature of Paleomagnetism
•Magnetism a property of iron- bearing
minerals.
•If permitted to do so, these grains align
parallel to earth’s magnetic field.
•Records position of earth’s magnetic
poles.
•Determined in laboratory from field
samples.
 Paleomagnetism, etc.
Results of Paleomagnetic
Studies

• Plotting position of pole based on North

American data shows an apparent
wandering through time.

• 13,000 MILES TO PRESENT POSITION

IN ARCTIC CIRCLE.
The symbol
Polar Wandering ?
shows the *
*
path of the
NMP from *
Precambrian
*
To Cretaceous.
*
*
 Paleomagnetism
Results
• However, the position of the pole from European
data does not match that of the data from North
America.
• Indeed, each continent appears to have its own
path for polar wandering.
• Because this is impossible, continents must have
been moving about during this time.
• Only recently have they moved to the present
position.
 Evidence from the Oceans
• World War II brought a spectacular
advance in our abilities to study the ocean.
• Among the discoveries were:

– Heat-flow measurements
– Thickness of the oceanic crust
– Thickness and age of sedimentary deposits on
the ocean floor.
– Earthquakes along ridges, trenches.
– Very large fractures, most of them faults.
Exploring the Ocean Floor
 Hypothesis of Sea-Floor
Spreading
• Convection currents in mantle rise under oceanic
ridges and spread.
• Driving force is here transferred from core to
mantle.
• Oceanic crust (basaltic) created at ridges.
• Crust plus upper mantle (lithosphere) move
laterally away – going along for the ride.
Hypothesis of Sea-Floor Spreading
 Sea-Floor Spreading
• Lithosphere plunges into oceanic trenches.
Does this explain the anomalies of ocean floor heat
distribution?
• Continents don’t drift through the mantle but are
passengers.
• Oceanic crust has to be young because older rocks have
been:
– Plastered onto the edge of continents.
– Thrust down into the mantle.
Why are the sedimentary materials on the ocean floor so thin?
 Confirmation of Sea-Floor
Spreading
• Earth’s magnetic field periodically reversed.
• The age of these reversals determined by
radiometric dating.
• Magnetic anomalies found on both sides of
oceanic ridges.
• Preserved in basalt formed in center of rise.
Magnetic
anomalies
Confirmation of Sea-Floor Spreading
 Confirmation of Sea-Floor
Spreading
• Through sea-floor spreading, sea floor has
served as a tape recorder – working in
stereo.
• Preserved record of reversals and their time
of occurrence.
• Can also determine rate of spreading.
~ 1 inch per year in North Atlantic
~ 2 inches per year in South Pacific
 Plate Tectonics
Basics
• Earth’s lithosphere broken into large plates.
• Upwelling of magma creates new oceanic crust. Added to
edge of plate.
• Plates diverge from ridge.
• Elsewhere, plates
– Pass into oceanic trenches (subduction).
– Collide with each other.
– Push past each other along great strike-slip faults.
Plate
Boundaries
Convergent Plate Boundaries
 Plate Tectonics
• Collisions can involve an oceanic plate and
a continental plate, two continental plates,
or two oceanic plates.
• Continents do not drift, but are rafted about.
• Some oceanic basins are steadily widening;
others are closing.
• Driving mechanism believed to be
convection currents of some type.
Hypotheses About Convection Cells
 Plate Tectonics
• Benioff zones: long narrow earthquake
zones dipping into the lithosphere.
• Created by rupture of subducting plate.
• Hot spots where plumes of magma rise from the
asthenosphere.
– Remain fixed
– Plate migrates over, creating chain of
volcanoes.
Hawaii, Yellowstone
•Continental Rifting
Vindication
Some of the earliest evidence
confirming Wegener's theories
of continental drift was revealed
when geologists measured the
age of the ocean floor. Crustal
rocks near the mid-ocean ridges
are always very young, while
the ocean crust along
continental margins, furthest
away from the ridges, is
hundreds of millions of years
older. New ocean floor is being
created at the mid-ocean ridges
—pushing the continents along