Notes
- Idea proposed by Alfred Wegener
- Used fossils, shape of the continents, longitudinal location, climate changes, and mountain ranges to prove his theory of continental drift
- He used fossils to show that the continents were once connected.
- The longitudinal location of Greenland did not match up with the data he collected in earlier expeditions. This led him to believing that Greenland was moving away from Europe.
- He noticed that many of the continents (like Africa and South America) fit together extremely well.
- He noticed evidence of glaciers in warm and tropical areas of Africa, and coal deposits (found in the tropics) under the ice in Antarctica.
- Wegener thought the continents were joined together at one point in a large super continent named Pangaea.
- He also noticed that there were matching folded mountain belts among the east coast of South America and the west coast of Africa.
- He did not have an explanation on how the continents moved across the ocean floor.