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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.
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.
Antonio Snider-Pellegrini (1802–1885) was a French geographer and geologist who theorized about the possibility of continental drift, anticipating Wegener's theories concerning Pangaea by several decades. In 1858, Snider-Pellegrini published his book, La Création et ses mystères dévoilés ("The Creation and its Mysteries Unveiled").
In 1912, the meteorologist Alfred Wegener described what he called continental drift, an idea that culminated fifty years later in the modern theory of plate tectonics. [45] Wegener expanded his theory in his 1915 book The Origin of Continents and Oceans. [46]
Wegener suggested that the differential gravitational force resulting from the horizontal component of the centrifugal could cause continental masses to drift slowly towards the equator. Wegener's hypothesis was expanded by Paul Sophus Epstein in 1920, but the force is now known to be far too weak to cause plate tectonics. The strength of the ...
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 ...
The granite outcrops of the Seychelles Islands in the central Indian Ocean were amongst the earliest examples cited by Alfred Wegener as evidence for his continental drift theory. [1] Ridge–plume interactions have been responsible for separating a thinned continental sliver from a large continent (i.e. India). [2]