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Continental drift is a highly supported scientific 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 ...
Heezen was initially unconvinced as the idea would have supported continental drift, then a controversial theory. Many scientists, including Heezen, believed that continental drift was impossible at the time. Instead, for a time, he favored the Expanding Earth hypothesis, [20] [21] (now infamously) dismissing her explanation as "girl talk". [22]
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 Alfred Wegener proposed the theory of continental drift. [36] This theory suggests that the shapes of continents and matching coastline geology between some continents indicates they were joined together in the past and formed a single landmass known as Pangaea; thereafter they separated and drifted like rafts over the ocean floor ...
During the development of continental drift theory, there was not much exploration of the oceanic part of the world, only continental. Once people began to pay attention to the ocean, geologists found that the floor was spreading, and in different rates at different spots. [ 9 ]
Bullard became one of the most important geophysicists of his day. He also did studies of the ocean floor, even though he suffered from seasickness and could rarely take scientific trips on the ocean. He was important to dynamo theory, hence his most important work concerned the source of the Earth's magnetic field. He was often frustrated by ...
Continental drift is the theory which emerged in the early 20th century that the Earth's continents have moved over geologic time relative to each other, thus appearing to have "drifted" across the ocean bed. [2] The idea of continental drift was subsumed by the theory of plate tectonics in the mid-20th century.