He relied heavily on matching geological patterns across oceans, such as sedimentary strata in South America matching those in Africa (Figure 10.3), 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 pursued his theory with determination - combing the libraries, consulting with colleagues, and making observations - looking for evidence to support it. During the Permian, the supercontinent Pangea included the supercontinent Gondwana, shown here, along with North America and Eurasia. Wegener concluded that this distribution of fossils could only exist if these continents were joined together during the Permian, and he coined the term Pangea (“all land”) for the supercontinent that he thought included all of the present-day continents.įigure 10.1 Alfred Wegener a few years before his death in 1930 įigure 10.2 The distribution of several Permian terrestrial fossils that are present in various parts of continents that are now separated by oceans. 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 10.2). ![]() ![]() 60 10.1 Alfred Wegener - the Father of Plate TectonicsĪlfred Wegener (1880-1930) (Figure 10.1) 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.
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