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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 ...
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").
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.
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 ...
Daly's theory on continental displacement was based partly on the idea that after the Moon was ejected from the Earth, continental movement was an inevitable part of rebalancing the planet; he also suggested that continental material accruing near oceans eventually slips, and forces continents to creep along.
Continental assembly and uplift also meant increasingly arid land climates, favoring the evolution of amniote animals and seed plants, whose eggs and seeds were better adapted to dry climates. [40] The early drying trend was most pronounced in western Pangaea, which became a center of the evolution and geographical spread of amniotes.
Because this theory could account for the presence of diluvium, the word drift became the preferred term for the loose, unsorted material, today called till. Furthermore, Lyell believed that the accumulation of fine angular particles covering much of the world (today called loess ) was a deposit settled from mountain flood water. [ 33 ]