Continental Drift
Continental Drift
Continental Drift
DRIFT
ALFRED
WEGENER
The theory of continental drift is most
associated with him.
Pangaea
In the early 20th century, Wegener published a Pangea's existence was first proposed in 1912 by
paper explaining his theory that the continental German meteorologist Alfred Wegener as a
landmasses were “drifting” across the Earth, part of his theory of continental drift. Its name is
sometimes plowing through oceans and into derived from the Greek pangaia, meaning
each other. He called this movement “all the Earth.”
continental drift
Wegener, trained as an astronomer, used
biology, botany, and geology describe
Continental Drift Pangaea and continental drift.
Continental drift describes one of the earliest
ways geologists thought continents moved Pangaea existed about 240 million years ago.
over time. Today, the theory of continental drift By about 200 million years ago, this
has been replaced by the science of plate supercontinent began breaking up. Over
tectonics. millions of years, Pangaea separated into
pieces that moved away from one another.
These pieces slowly assumed their positions as
Wegener was convinced that all of Earth’s the continent we recognize today. Today,
continents were once part of an enormous, scientists think that several supercontinents
single landmass called Pangaea like Pangaea have formed and broken up over
the course of the Earth’s lifespan. These
include Pannotia, which formed about 600
million years ago, and Rodinia, which existed
more than a billion years ago.
Scientists did not accept Wegener’s theory of continental
drift. One of the elements lacking in the theory was the
mechanism for how it works.