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Continental drift is the theory, originating in the early 20th century, that Earth's continents move or drift relative to each other over geologic time. [1] The theory of continental drift has since been validated and incorporated into the science of plate tectonics, which studies the movement of the continents as they ride on plates of the Earth's lithosphere.
But Wegener only published his idea after reading a paper in 1911 which criticised the prevalent hypothesis, that a bridge of land once connected Europe and America, on the grounds that this contradicts isostasy. [20] Wegener's main interest was meteorology, and he wanted to join the Denmark-Greenland expedition scheduled for mid-1912.
Although Wegener's theory was formed independently and was more complete than those of his predecessors, Wegener later credited a number of past authors with similar ideas: [18] Franklin Coxworthy (between 1848 and 1890), [19] Roberto Mantovani (between 1889 and 1909), William Henry Pickering (1907) [20] and Frank Bursley Taylor (1908). [21]
The root of this was Alfred Wegener's 1912 publication of his theory of continental drift, which was a controversy in the field through the 1950s. [2] At that point scientists introduced new evidence in a new way, replacing the idea of continental drift with instead a theory of plate tectonics. [2]
[8] [9] Although Alfred Wegener noticed some similarities to his own hypothesis of continental drift, he did not mention Earth expansion as the cause of drift in Mantovani's hypothesis. [10] A compromise between Earth-expansion and Earth-contraction is the "theory of thermal cycles" by Irish physicist John Joly.
This theory was launched by Arthur Holmes and some forerunners in the 1930s [21] and was immediately recognized as the solution for the acceptance of the theory as originally discussed in the papers of Alfred Wegener in the early years of the 20th century. However, despite its acceptance, it was long debated in the scientific community because ...
A worker stocks grocery items at Northgate Market in Los Angeles. California voters have rejected a ballot measure that would have raised the state's hourly minimum wage to $18 from $16.
I think best approach is separate sections that: 1) describe the observation, 2) describe the various theories, 3) discuss Wegener's theory (because it is the most notable of all the theories), and then 4) discuss why Wegener's theory was rejected (because that is, nowadays, its most notable aspect).