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Continental drift is a highly supported scientific 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 ...
The Vine–Matthews–Morley hypothesis, also known as the Morley–Vine–Matthews hypothesis, was the first key scientific test of the seafloor spreading theory of continental drift and plate tectonics. Its key impact was that it allowed the rates of plate motions at mid-ocean ridges to be computed.
Wegener's continental drift hypotheses is a logical consequence of: the theory of thrusting (alpine geology), the isostasy, the continents forms resulting from the supercontinent Gondwana break up, the past and present-day life forms on both sides of the Gondwana continent margins, and the Permo-Carboniferous moraine deposits in South Gondwana.
So that Émile Argand (1916) speculated that the Alps were caused by the North motion of the African shield, and finally accepted this reason 1922, following Wegener's Continental drift theory (Argand 1924 as Staub 1924). Otto Ampferer in the meantime, at the Geological Society Meeting in Vienna, held on 4 April 1919, defended the link between ...
Polflucht (from German, flight from the poles) is a geophysical concept invoked in 1922 by Alfred Wegener to explain his ideas of continental drift. The pole-flight force F P f {\displaystyle F_{\mathrm {Pf} }} is that component of the centrifugal force during the rotation of the Earth that acts tangentially to the Earth's surface.
In 1889 and 1909 Roberto Mantovani published a hypothesis of Earth expansion and continental drift. He assumed that a closed continent covered the entire surface of a smaller Earth. Thermal expansion caused volcanic activity, which broke the land mass into smaller continents. These continents drifted away from each other because of further ...
The widespread distribution of Permo-Carboniferous glacial sediments in South America, Africa, Madagascar, Arabia, India, Antarctica and Australia was one of the major pieces of evidence for the theory of continental drift, and led ultimately to the concept of a super-continent, Pangaea.
Alfred Wegener has been mischaracterised as a lone genius whose theory of continental drift met widespread rejection until well after his death. In fact, the main tenets of the theory gained widespread acceptance by European researchers already in the 1920s, and the debates were mostly about specific details.