Investigating Plate Tectonics, Earthquakes, and Volcanoes

Investigating Plate Tectonics, Earthquakes, and Volcanoes — page 9
INVESTIGATING PLATE TECTONICs EARTHQUAKES AND VoICANOES ALFRED WEGENER AND CONTINENTAL DRIFT Alfred Wegener the originator of the con tinental drift theory was born in Berlin Germany on Nov 1 1880 The son of a direc tor of an orphanage he received his doctorate in astronomy from the University of Berlin in 1905 During this time he became interested in meteorology and geology Wegener went on four expeditions to Greenland and was considered a specialist on the territory He taught meteorology at Marburg and Hamburg and was a professor of meteorology and geo physics at the University of Graz from 1924 to 1930 He died during his last expedition to Greenland in 1930 Like some other scientists before him Wegener became impressed with the simi larity in the coastlines of eastern South America and western Africa which appear that they would fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle He was not the first to spec ulate that those lands had once been joined together or that all the present day con tinents had formed a single large mass or supercontinent However other scientists had explained the separation of the modern continents as having resulted from the sink ing of large portions of the supercontinent 14