Alfred Wegener proposed that the continents were once united into a single supercontinent named Pangaea, meaning all earth in ancient Greek. He
suggested that Pangaea broke up long ago and that the continents then moved to their current positions
. He called his hypothesis continental drift.
What evidence did Alfred Wegener say about continental drift?
Wegener used
fossil evidence
to support his continental drift hypothesis. The fossils of these organisms are found on lands that are now far apart. Grooves and rock deposits left by ancient glaciers are found today on different continents very close to the equator.
What is continental drift theory explain?
Continental drift was a
revolutionary theory explaining that continents shift position on Earth’s surface
. … He proposed that Earth must have once been a single supercontinent before breaking up to form several different continents.
Why was Alfred Wegener’s theory of continental drift rejected?
The main reason that Wegener’s hypothesis was not accepted was
because he suggested no mechanism for moving the continents
. He thought the force of Earth’s spin was sufficient to cause continents to move, but geologists knew that rocks are too strong for this to be true.
What do you know about Pangea?
Pangea, also spelled Pangaea, in early geologic time,
a supercontinent that incorporated almost all the landmasses on Earth
. Pangea was surrounded by a global ocean called Panthalassa, and it was fully assembled by the Early Permian Epoch (some 299 million to about 273 million years ago).
What evidence did Wegener rely on in the formulation of his theory of continental drift What evidence did he lack?
Alfred Wegener, in the first three decades of this century, and DuToit in the 1920s and 1930s gathered evidence that the continents had moved. They based their idea of continental drift on several lines of evidence:
fit of the continents, paleoclimate indicators, truncated geologic features, and fossils
.
How did Wegener’s hypothesis of continental drift differ from the current theory of plate tectonics?
The difference between continental drift and plate tectonics is that the theory of
continental drift states that the world was made up of a single continent
. The theory of plate-tectonics, on the other hand, states that earth’s surface is broken into numbers of shifting plates or slabs.
What was the main reason Wegener’s continental drift hypothesis was rejected quizlet?
Why was Wegener’s hypothesis rejected?
Because Wegener could not identify the cause of continental drift
, most geologists rejected his idea. Continental drift was what Wegener invented. Wegener’s hypothesis was rejected from geologists because he couldn’t identify the cause of continental drift.
What was the main idea of Wegener’s continental drift theory quizlet?
Wegeners hypothesis was
that all the continents were once joined together in a single landmass and have since drifted apart
. Wegener gathered evidence from different scientific fields to support his ideas about continental drift. He studied land features, fossils, and evidence of climate change.
When did Alfred Wegener make his theory?
Wegener first presented his theory in lectures in
1912
and published it in full in 1915 in his most important work, Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane (The Origin of Continents and Oceans).
How is Pangea formed?
Formation of Pangea
Pangea was formed
through years and years of landmass formation and movement
. Mantle convection within the Earth’s surface millions of years ago caused new material to constantly come to the surface between the Earth’s tectonic plates at rift zones.
What kind of evidence that supports Wegener’s hypothesis is that?
Fossils
also provided evidence to support Wegener’s theory. A fossil is any trace of an ancient organism preserved in rock. The fossils of the reptiles Mesosaurus and Lystrosaurus and a fernlike plant called Glossopteris have been found on widely separated landmasses.
Why is Pangea important?
Pangea is important
because it once connected all of the continents, allowing animals to migrate between land masses
that would be impossible today. …
What was the name of the fossil flora that grew on Pangaea during the late Paleozoic?
Glossopteris
, genus of fossilized woody plants known from rocks that have been dated to the Permian and Triassic periods (roughly 300 to 200 million years ago), deposited on the southern supercontinent of Gondwana. Glossopteris occurred in a variety of growth forms.
What evidence did Alfred Wegener used to support his theory of continental drift quizlet?
The Theory of Continental Drift was proposed by Alfred Wegener in 1912. He used several pieces of evidence to support his theory including
fossils, rocks, glacial markings, coal deposits and the fact that the continents fit together like a jigsaw puzzle
. .
How did Alfred Wegener come up with his theory?
In 1915, in the first edition of his book, Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane, written in German, Wegener
drew together evidence from various fields to advance the theory that there had once been a giant continent
, which he named “Urkontinent” (German for “primal continent”, analogous to the Greek “Pangaea”, …
Who is Alfred Wegener And what did he discover?
Alfred Wegener proposed the theory of continental drift –
the idea that Earth’s continents move
. Despite publishing a large body of compelling fossil and rock evidence for his theory between 1912 and 1929, it was rejected by most other scientists.
How does Pangea support the theory of evolution?
As continents broke apart from Pangaea,
species got separated by seas and oceans and speciation occurred
. … This drove evolution by creating new species. Also, as the continents drift, they move into new climates.
Where and when did Alfred Wegener make his discoveries?
Wegener experimented with kites and balloons, and with his brother Kurt set a world record in an international balloon contest, flying 52 hours straight. That was in 1906, the year he made his first expedition to
Greenland
. He went as the official meteorologist on a two-year Danish expedition.
What was Pangaea quizlet?
Pangaea was
a hypothetical supercontinent
that existed during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras, forming approximately 300 million years ago. It began to break apart around 200 million years ago. The single global ocean which surrounded Pangaea.
Why is it important to study the movement of Pangaea *?
The motion of the Earth’s plates help scientists to understand why earthquakes, volcanoes, and mountain building occur
. … Scientists believe these plates have been moving for millions of years. In fact, 250 millions years ago the Earth’s seven continents were all grouped together into a supercontinent called Pangea.
How did Pangea become 7 continents?
It wasn’t until 1912 that
meteorologist Alfred Wegener hypothesized
that the seven continents had once been joined as a supercontinent. … He claimed the lands separated 250 million years ago by the process of continental drift, which means the continents just slowly fractured and went their separate ways.
What did Wegener think happened to his supercontinent?
His widely accepted theory of land displacement holds that Earth’s continents have been in motion throughout geologic time. Wegener believe that there was once a single supercontinent, which he called
Pangea (or Pangaea)
. He said that Pangea broke apart millions of years ago to form two large continents.
How did Wegener use climate evidence to support his hypothesis?
Explain how Wegener used climate clues to support his hypothesis of continental drift?
Wegener hypothesized that Spitsbergen drifted from tropical regions to the arctic
. … Because if the continents were connected at one time, then rocks that make up the continents should be the same in locations where they were joined.
What is coastline matching evidence?
Coastline Matching
The similarity of
coastlines for different continents suggests that they may once have been connected
. But the fact that they were separated by sometimes thousands of miles suggested continental drift or plate tectonics . … Erosion could significantly affect the coastline geometry.
Where do you think was the location of the Philippines in Pangaea during the time when it existed?
When Pangaea was fully formed, the islands and early precursors of what is now the Philippines were in the Northern Hemisphere. They were
on the northeast corner of the western-most peninsula of Pangaea, between Vietnam to the west and Indonesia to the south
.
What led Wegener to think that Africa and South America had been joined together in the past are there more evidences?
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.
