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Get My Drift: When Wegener Moved Continents

Continents move or drift overtime. Quebec touched Spain. Brazil fit under Ghana and Nigeria in West Africa –150 million years ago. But it was only 100 years ago that a scientist from Berlin, Alfred Wegener, proposed the idea of continental drift.

It was January 1912. Wegener had just given talks in Frankfurt am Main and Marburg, Germany. His ideas on continental drift first came to the public eye in print after he published two papers. Three years later, Wegener presented his masterwork titled The Origin of Continents and Oceans (1915), which sought to formally explain the theory of continental drift. The theory was highly controversial as it went against the status quo whose beliefs included the idea that earth’s  continents were unchanging or that earth was a tetrahedral that violently exploded to produce our moon. It took nearly half a century before the theory of continental drift became accepted by the scientific community because Wegener lacked solid evidence to explain why the continents move. He could only offer vague speculations as to what the underlying force was.

Wegener’s contribution to the world of science was reminiscent of Nicolaus Copernicus. Copernicus’ heliocentric model changed or revolutionized, depending on how one wants to look at it, the world of astronomy. Like Copernicus, Wegener did not live to see his theory be widely accepted. In fact, Wegener died in 1930 while in the pursuit of science as he attempted to gather more evidence for his theory of continental drift. Geologists of Wegener’s time were conservative and not willing to change their views. As one historian, Adler, reflects on how geologists were afraid to accepted Wegener’s hypothesis, “much of what they believed and taught was wrong”. Yount, Adler, among other historians would very much make the comparison that Alfred Wegener was the new Nicolaus Copernicus of his time. But it is obvious why Wegener is a revolutionary scientist.

In the 19th century, the discovery of radioactivity allowed scientists to date older rocks from younger ones. This paved the way for them to explain the formation of continents and ocean basins. (See comments by Dawson Geography professor, Geoffrey Pearce, on some discrapancies) This scientific advancement was necessary in giving substance to Charles Lyell’s publication on the Principles of Geology. Lyell’s uniformitarian view advocated “that all past changes on Earth had been caused by forces now in operation”, as Yount puts it. Additionally, Lyell stated in his Principles of Geology that the “continents could be converted into sea floor and ocean floor raised up to make continents”. Subsequently, another uniformitarian school known as the permanentists argued that the continents and oceans have always been in the same place and therefore do not move. Eduard Suess postulated the idea of contractionism. This explored the possibility of Australia, India and Africa having once been part of a greater land mass. These different schools from the 19th century to the 20th century reflect that there was not a widely accepted model of the Earth’s history. Nonetheless, they were important in setting the foundation for which the future models of continental drift would base themselves upon.

Gribbin explains that in the 19th century there were models for continental drift that suggested “the continents might be sitting on magnetized crystalline foundations and were being swept northwards by a magnetic flow,” or other models that believed the Earth used to be tetrahedral in shape and that the continents came about after a catastrophic explosion resulting in the Moon being tossed out from the oceans and brought into its present-day orbit. To a modern reader, these models might sound more than farfetched but given the available knowledge at the time, the models seemed perfectly reasonable.

In 1858, Antonio Snider-Pellegrini published La Création et ces mystères devoilés, which included a map of the continents being placed on “both sides of the Atlantic Ocean”. This map became very useful as it was used to explain the similarities of fossilized plants and animals found on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Osmond Fisher later published a paper in 1882 which suggested the Moon had been torn from the Earth and the fragments that remained were the continents that tried to fill the massive hole left behind.

Gribbin notes how Wegener did not appear to be aware of the “older ideas about continental drift,” because after all, Wegener did not major in geology. However, Adler points out that the view Wegener was probably most familiar with was the permanentist argument because it was the dominant school of his time. Similarly, Yount recalls how the majority of the geologists Wegener was familiar with “believed that the continents had always remained in the same positions on the planet”. Therefore, the permanentist view was dominant at the start of the 20th century. One of the great challenges for Alfred Wegener was to convince geologists to abandon their permanentist view.

Alfred Wegener was not a geologist. Rather he studied in astronomy and meteorology. In 1905, he obtained his PhD in astronomy from the University of Berlin. Despite the PhD, Adler remarks that Wegener decided to pursue his work in meteorology because “astronomy ‘offers no opportunity for physical activity’”. After all, Wegener does appear to have had a fixation for exercise as he overtook four difficult expeditions to Greenland, the last of which resulted in his unfortunate death.

In 1910 at the University of Marburg, a colleague of Wegener had received a new world atlas. Wegener noticed the “remarkable fit between the Atlantic coastlines of Africa and South America”. In fact, it looked as though they could be put together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. He was inspired by this new and interesting observation of his and speculated on the possibility of Africa and South America having been once joined together. However, he dismissed it as “highly improbable” due to the lack of evidence to support such a bold claim. Wegener, simply put, did not have the necessary or concrete proof to explain or even understand what could have led to these two continents having once been united and to their eventual disunity.

But the publication in 1911 on certain fossils changed everything. 1911. Wegener read an article outlining the identical fossilized animals and plants found on both Africa and South America. Suddenly, Wegener’s old interest in the potential union of both continents was revived. Recall that Wegener was not a geologist but that did not impede his curiosity. The stage was now set for Wegener to devise his theory of continental drift. Biologists and geologists of the time believed the continents to be fixed. To explain these identical fossils on both land masses, geologists and biologists argued the possibility of a land bridge that existed long ago. Wegener dismissed their claim by asking a simple question: “Can one really be expected to believe that a mere land bridge is enough in this case to ensure the interchange of biological forms?”

Moreover, geologists and biologists alike could not see the ocean floor because they did not have the means of technology to do so yet. Thus they had no strong evidence to support their land bridge theory. Furthermore, Wegener argued that continents are made of lighter materials compared to ocean floors. “Continent-sized landmasses could not have disappeared without creating telltale gravitational anomalies”, Adler points out. In other words, if these land bridges disappeared, they should have left some sort of trace but there appears to be none of that, or none that anyone at the time could see for that matter.

Wegener thus realized that if the continents were united at the time the fossils came about, this could ultimately explain why South America and Africa have identical fossilized plants and animals. Wegener noted how the fossils “provided immediately such weighty corroboration that a conviction of the fundamental soundness of the idea took root in my mind”. The question of the hour was how to prove the union of the continents beyond just mere speculation.

Wegener devised his theory of continental displacement, which later took the form of continental drift. The theory hypothesized that the continents move overtime. Additionally, it said all the continents used to be connected, creating a large supercontinent known as Pangaea, which literally translates to mother earth. Furthermore, when continents hit each other, they form mountain chains such as the Himalayas. By the same token, when continents hit the ocean floor, they create mountain chains like the Andes in South America. Wegener remarked how the “present-day continental blocks have […] the same outlines” dating back to when the continents broke apart from Pangaea. This observation of his is perhaps the most convincing aspect of the continental drift theory because it forces one to ask and think about why these continents look like they can fit nicely together. Wegener believed Pangaea started to break up approximately 200 million years ago. Then 20 million years later, the supercontinent was divided along a northern and southern land mass. Approximately 65 million years ago, the Americas and Africa became separated by the Atlantic Ocean.

Consequently, Wegener believed the Atlantic Ocean to be still getting wider. His estimates were not too far away. In fact, by modern dating, it is believed Pangaea existed about 150 million years ago rather than 200 million. It certainly does seem like a big discrepancy but given the technology available at the time, being 50 million years off was not that bad of an estimate. To convince scientists of continental drift, Wegener used a simple analogy: imagine one takes a sheet of paper and rips it in pieces. The fragments can be put back together to make the paper readable again. It works just like putting a puzzle together. By the same token, the continents can be put back together to recreate Pangaea. The concept of a supercontinent would explain why and how fossilized plants and animals have landed on the coasts of South America and Africa.

Wegener began trying to accumulate a variety of evidence to support his theory. Regardless of the fact that his ideas contradicted the views of the status quo, he believed his view was the right one and that anyone who was exposed to his ideas would undeniably agree with him. In late December of 1911, Wegener wrote to a friend stating, “If it turns out that sense and meaning are now becoming evident in the whole history of the Earth’s development, why should we hesitate to toss the old views overboard?”

So, the next month, January 1912, Wegener put forth his ideas in two speeches delivered at talks to the scientific community. Later in the year, he published the ideas from his two speeches into two papers. Both papers gathered minimal attention and were practically unnoticed.  Shortly after, World War I began in mid-1914. Wegener was immediately called to serve in Belgium. Other scientists were also being called up to partake in the war for their respective countries. Scientists that were once friends and colleagues now found themselves as enemies fighting for survival. The advancement of science became disrupted. Wegener was wounded twice in battle and was thus labeled as “unfit for service”. Perhaps this was a blessing in disguise as this gave Wegener ample time to put together his ideas on continental drift into a book. In 1915, Wegener published in German his masterwork titled The Origin of Continents and Oceans. Europe was too preoccupied with the war to really focus on Wegener’s work, thus it went completely unnoticed except for a few academics who bothered to read it. Nevertheless, he continued working on the continental drift model and looking for more evidence to support his case to respond from criticism his model received. This led Wegener to revise his work three times: 1920, 1922 and 1929. Gribbin points out that Wegener’s friends were concerned about his reputation because the continental drift theory was radical for its time. Nonetheless, because of Wegener’s talents as a meteorologist, he was named the professor of meteorology at the University of Graz in 1924. In the same year, he co-authored a work that sought to explain how continental drift influences the climate. Additionally, the 1922 edition of his masterwork was translated into English and French allowing it to reach a wider audience.

Wegener hypothesized that the continents “could move through underlying rock as icebergs moved through water”. This was the result of two combined forces. The first force was the tidal effect of the sun and moon’s gravity pulling on the continents and the second effect was the earth pulling the continents towards the equator. With these two forces, Wegener could explain that mountains were created as a result of continents colliding with each other or hitting the ocean floor. Additionally, Wegener argued that continental drift is actively occurring in places such as the East African rift valley. This made his theory uniformitarian because Wegener believed continental drift was occurring presently and has always occurred in the past. Wegener is thus remarkable for not only using the theory of continental drift to explain scientific phenomena, but also for trying to explain how continental drift can occur.

Sides were drawn. Émile Argand, founder of the Geological Institute in Switzerland, accepted Wegener’s model in 1922 because it explained “certain puzzling features” of the Alps. For example, Wegener explained what caused the formation of mountains and gave them their features. But in Britain, a geologist named Philip Lake gave a speech on Wegener’s model in 1923 to the Royal Geographical Society in London. Lake protested the notion of Pangaea because he claimed Wegener had altered the outlines of the continents in order for them to be able to fit together. Additionally, Lake argued that the similar rocks found in South Africa and South America had not been analyzed enough to really know if they are similar. After the talk, the majority of geologists at the Royal Geographical Society sided with Lake. Next, Harold Jeffreys, a notable geophysicist at Britain’s Cambridge University, believed the tidal and pole forces that Wegener claimed were the factors behind continental drift, to be too weak to move these land masses. In short, European scientists accepted the model because it explained scientific phenomena while the British rejected it because they found the evidence unsound.

The English translation of Wegener’s masterwork arrived in America in 1924 and received mixed feelings too. In 1926, a conference in New York City was held to debate continental drift. Wegener was not present but his theory was at the forefront of the discussion. While there were defenders of his theory in America, many took the same position Jeffreys and questioned if the forces exerted by the poles and tides were really strong enough to move continents around. One of the attendees, Chester Longwell of Yale University did not flat out reject Wegener’s theory but he felt it was lacking strong evidence. Furthermore, an Australian geologist J. W. Gregory, another conference member, noticed how North America and Asia have similarities in terms of their animals and plants, just like South America and Africa, yet wondered why Wegener did not bother to make a connection between those two continents. To explain the similarities of Asia and North America, look at the continental drift model: when Pangaea was still united, animals and their offspring’s traveled to North America and Asia, thus explaining why there are similarities between the two land masses. This is the argument Wegener would make in reply to Gregory’s question.

Gribbin notes that the continental drift was weak in terms of explaining the reason for the breakup of the supercontinent Pangaea. As mentioned already, Wegener speculated that two potential forces cause continental drift but he could not explain why Pangaea broke up in the first place. This left a room full of skeptics around and the critics of the theory of continental drift capitalized on Wegener’s lack of evidence to dismiss his theory as nothing worth looking at. The skepticism surrounding Wegener’s theory was not unfounded. In fact, Gribbin points out that Wegener disregarded any evidence that did not agree with his hypothesis. In other words, he was searching only for evidence that supported him. Wegener believed that the continental drift was occurring so fast that Greenland had disunited from Scandinavia only 50,000 to 100,000 years ago, and was moving at a speed of 11 to 21 meters per year. This belief has long been put to rest. It is important to note that Wegener did believe in the possibility of those measurements being inaccurate because of the way they had been measured. Gribbin argues that Wegener’s theory is “good” in places where it explains how continents, which are now distant from each other, managed to experience glaciation not too long ago. The fact that Wegener’s model has instances of being right or wrong is not what matters. What is truly important is the methodology he employed: gathering new evidence to further support the existence of Pangaea by connecting it to the fossils of plants and animals, and mountain chains.  

Adler reveals that Wegener knew continental drift was “revolutionary” and he strongly believed people would accept it after he published his masterwork in 1915. Wegener’s assessment could not have been further off from reality. His theory was very controversial and many leading geologists dismissed it as outright nonsense. Wegener’s theory attacked the universal belief that the Earth was stable and unmoving. Not to mention that Wegener did not hold a degree in geology, he was more interested in astronomy and meteorology as mentioned earlier. Thus he was viewed upon as an outsider and labelled as unintelligible. Wegener was intruding and geologists clearly understood the implications of his theory. For example, in 1926 an American geologist quoted an unnamed colleague as saying that “If we are to believe Wegener’s hypothesis, we must forget everything which has been learned in the past seventy years and start all over again”. Luckily for them, Wegener gathered evidence from many different scientific fields which made him particularly easy to attack and contradict. Additionally, Wegener could not prove what caused the continents to move against the resistance of what lied beneath. In the last edition of Wegener’s masterwork before dying, he insisted that “The Newton of drift theory has not yet appeared”. Only in the 1950s, where technology was now more advanced, could the theory of continental drift receive strong evidence to support it. Researchers were able to trace geological changes throughout time and what they found was that the continents do indeed move, as Wegener had argued. In 1960, Henry Hess of Princeton discovered that the continents and ocean basins are situated above platonic plates. These plates are moved by winds. At last, the force powerful enough to explain continental drift was discovered but by then Wegener was already long gone.

In short, Alfred Wegener’s legacy rests upon his determination to build a complete model outlining continental drift. He is noteworthy for not only using the model to explain natural phenomena but also for using it to explain how continental drift can happen. Despite criticism over his model, Wegener continued to fight in support of it and even updated his model as he gathered more evidence for it. This came in the form of his masterwork which he revised three times. His untimely death in 1930 came as he was trying to find new evidence in support of continental drift. His continuous efforts to gather new evidence to support Pangaea and link it to similarities between fossils and plants or the creation of mountain chains, is what is important to take away here. From a universal belief that the world continents are stable and do not move, Wegener revolutionized geology and demonstrated that the continents do in fact move. In comparison, Copernicus fundamentally changed astronomy by his planetary model that put the Sun in the center instead of the Earth. Neither Wegener nor Copernicus lived to see their models widely accepted but both go down in history as revolutionary scientists.

Note: This was originally a paper submitted to class. It has been only slightly amended and in text citations have been removed. For original paper or question please leave comment below for author to contact you. 

Works Cited

Adler, Robert E. Science Firsts: From the Creation of Science to the Science of Creation. Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley, 2002. Print.

Gribbin, John. The Scientists: A History of Science Told Through the Lives of Its Greatest Inventors. New York: Random House, 2004. Print.

Thagard, Paul, and Gregory Nowak. “The Explanatory Coherence of Continental Drift.” PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association (1988): 118-126. JSTOR. Web. 19 October 2013.

Wegener, Alfred. The Origin of Continents and Oceans. New York: Dover Publications, 1966. Print.

Yount, Lisa. Alfred Wegener: Creator of the Continental Drift Theory. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 2009. Print.