Did Alfred Wegener Discover Sea Floor Spreading

Sea floor spreading is the phenomena of new sea floor being created through mid ocean ridges.

Did alfred wegener discover sea floor spreading.

He pointed out that the continents are made of a different less dense rock granite than the volcanic basalt that makes up the deep sea floor in which wegener proposed that the continents floated somewhat like icebergs in water. Alfred wegener s continental drift theory. It is important to know that the following specific fossil evidence was not brought up by wegener to support his theory. Alfred wegener german meteorologist and geophysicist who formulated the first complete statement of the continental drift hypothesis.

Alfred wegener was born in berlin germany on november 1 1880. Alfred lothar wegener ˈ v eɪ ɡ ən ər. In 1912 alfred wegener proposed a theory that the continents had once been joined and over time had drifted apart. 1 november 1880 november 1930 was a german polar researcher geophysicist and meteorologist.

Alfred wegener and plate tectonics. Alfred wegener collected diverse pieces of evidence to support his theory including geological fit and fossil evidence. Wegener never found out about the sea floor spreading hypothesis for he died in 1930 and the evidence and proof of that process only arrived in the late 1950s wegener like several before him. It is the tectonic plates that move.

Wegener proposed that the continents themselves move which is untrue. Similar to wegener s theory that continents do in fact move hess seafloor spreading contradicted wegener s continental drift in that it involved the ocean sea floor moving as it expanded instead of continents ploughing through the sea. Sea floor spreading caused the break up of pangea which prompted wegener to add this in support of his continental drift theory. The west african coastline seems to snuggle nicely into the east coast of south america and the caribbean sea.

He spent a great deal of time in greenland as part of several exploration and research expeditions. Wegener himself did not collect. Close examination of a globe often results in the observation that most of the continents seem to fit together like a puzzle. His theory was rejected by most geologists during his lifetime but was resurrected and made a central feature of modern geology as part of the theory of plate tectonics in the 1960s.

And a similar fit appears across the pacific. Wegener also noted that the continents move up and down to maintain equilibrium in a process called isostasy. His book the origin of continents and oceans was originally published in germany in 1929 and was instrumental in the development of the theory of seafloor spreading. The missing mechanism seafloor spreading.