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Alfred Lothar Wegener (Berlin, November 1, 1880 – Greenland, November 2 or 3, 1930) was a German interdisciplinary scientist world health organization got early step by step instruction inside astronomy. (Ph.D., University of Berlin, 1905). He became concerned in the recently discipline of meteorology and as a record-holding balloonist himself, pioneered the have of weather balloons to track air masses. His lectures became the standard text around meteorology, A Thermodynamics of the Atmosphere. Wegener was section of many expeditions to Greenland to study polar air circulation, when the being of a jet stream itself was highly controversial. He died there of exposure in bitter cold. Browsing a library at a University of Marburg, where he was teaching inside 1911, Wegener was struck per occurrence of monovular fossils in geological strata that come okay, separated by oceans. A accepted explanations or even theories at a period posited land bridges to explain away these anomalies. However Wegener was progressively confident that the continents themselves experienced shifted out of a primal only massive supercontinent, which drifted apart astir 200 million years ago, to judge from either a fossil grounds to believe. From either 1912 he publicly advocated his theory of "continental drift", arguing that the continents on each sides of the Atlantic Ocean were drifting apart. Recovery from either the war wound gave Wegener period to believe. Around 1915, in The Origin of Continents and Oceans (Die Entstehung 500 Kontinente und Ozeane), Wegener published the theory that there experienced it used to be that been a gargantuan supercontinent, which he known as "Pangaea" (meaning "all-Earth") & bring together grounds to believe from either various fields. Expanded editions in a period of the 1920s presented the accumulating grounds to believe. A previous edition, upright prior to his prematurely demise, revealed a important observation that shallower oceans were geologically immature. A a single Our contries edition, published inside 1924, provoked such hostility that it was not revised. Several geologists focused on the deficiency of the demonstrrespire mechanism & rejected & ridiculed Wegener for his ideas, noting that he may not show else you how continents were able to move. A theory received trend lines through the controversial years from either South African geologist Alexander Du Toit as well as from either Arthur Holmes. Single when a mid-20th century discovery of seafloor spreading did Wegener receive credit, as an early developer of the theory of plate tectonics. It took other than L years prior to adequate grounds to believe was acquired & presented to convince mainstream geologists to acknowledge that a continents were actually around motion; & a healthy between a coasts of Africa and South America was more than good illusional.
Awards and honors
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On the Shoulders of Giants: Alfred Wegener Profile of Wegener, his theory of continental drift, and the derision that it once inspired. Alfred Wegener Brief biography and description of work from the University of California Museum of Paleontology. Alfred Lothar Wegener: Moving continents Endeavored to prove by scientific methods that Africa and South America were once joined. Includes biography and information about the final trip to Greenland. Wegener, Alfred A pioneer in plate tectonics, who used reason and scientific method to prove a theory that Africa and South America was once one continent. Page includes information about aeronautical research, facing the critics and final acceptance of this visionary's work. Plate Tectonics: The Rock History of an Idea Explains the early observation of the similar coastlines and undersea continental shelves and how this led to the development of theory of a an ancient single land mass. Discusses early contributors to the field like Alfred Wegener. |
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