7 2.1 Alfred Wegener and the Theory of Plate Tectonics

If you look at a map of Earth, you may notice that some of the continents seem to fit together. An early reference to this phenomenon came from Francis Bacon in the 17th century, who noticed the similarities in the Atlantic coasts of Africa, and North and South America. This apparent fit is due to the fact the continents were once connected, and have since moved apart in what has been called continental drift. However, we now know that it is not just the continents that move, so a more correct term is plate tectonics. We can credit Alfred Wegener (Figure 2.1.1) as the originator of this idea.

Alfred Wegener (1880-1930) earned a PhD in astronomy at the University of Berlin in 1904, but he had always been interested in geophysics and meteorology and spent most of his academic career working in meteorology. In 1911 he happened on a scientific publication that included a description of the existence of matching Permian-aged terrestrial fossils in various parts of South America, Africa, India, Antarctica, and Australia (Figure 2.1.2). Wegener concluded that this distribution of fossils could only exist if these continents were joined together. Furthermore, some of these transcontinental areas have similar fossils until around 150 million years ago, then they begin to diverge, suggesting that the areas eventually separated and speciation took different paths on the separate continents. Wegener coined the term Pangaea (“all land”) for the supercontinent from which all of the present-day continents diverged.

Wegener pursued his theory with determination — combing the libraries, consulting with colleagues, and making observations — looking for evidence to support it. In addition to the fit of the continents and the fossil evidence, Wegener relied heavily on matching geological patterns across oceans, such as sedimentary strata in South America matching those in Africa (Fig. 2.1.3), North American coalfields matching those in Europe, and the mountains of Atlantic Canada matching those of northern Britain both in morphology and rock type.

Wegener also referred to the evidence for the Carboniferous and Permian (~300 Ma) Karoo Glaciation in South America, Africa, India, Antarctica, and Australia (Fig. 2.1.4). These areas contain evidence of past glacial deposits, including glacial scars oriented away from the poles, despite the fact that some of these locations are now tropical environments. This indicates that these continents were once closer to the south pole where the glaciers could have formed. Wegener argued that this could only have happened if these continents were once all connected as a single supercontinent. He also cited evidence (based on his own astronomical observations) that showed that the continents were moving with respect to each other, and determined a separation rate between Greenland and Scandinavia of 11 m per year, although he admitted that the measurements were not accurate. In fact they weren’t even close — the separation rate is actually about 2.5 cm per year!

Wegener first published his ideas in 1912 in a short book called Die Entstehung der Kontinente (The Origin of Continents), and then in 1915 in Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane (The Origin of Continents and Oceans). He revised this book several times up to 1929, and it was translated into French, English, Spanish, and Russian. However, despite his range of evidence, the continental fits were not perfect and the geological match-ups were not always consistent (while the continental fit left some gaps when using the current coastline, it was demonstrated in the 1960s that using a 500 m depth contour gives a much tighter fit). But the most serious problem of all was that Wegener could not conceive of a good mechanism for moving the continents around. Wegener proposed that the continents were like icebergs floating on heavier crust, but the only forces that he could invoke to propel continents around were poleflucht, the effect of Earth’s rotation pushing objects toward the equator, and the lunar and solar tidal forces, which tend to push objects toward the west. It was quickly shown that these forces were far too weak to move continents, and without any reasonable mechanism to make it work, Wegener’s theory was quickly dismissed by most geologists of the day. Alfred Wegener died in Greenland in 1930 while carrying out studies related to glaciation and climate. At the time of his death, his ideas were tentatively accepted by only a small minority of geologists, and soundly rejected by most. However, within a few decades that was all to change.