| The Geosphere | ||
| THE EARTH | Continental Drift |
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The large-scale horizontal movements of continents relative to one another and to the ocean basins during one or more episodes of geologic time is known as "continental drift". The theory of continental drift was proposed in 1912 by Alfred Wegener (left), a German meteorologist. Because at the time it was thought that the Earth's crust was rigid and unmovable, the theory languished for some decades. It was not until the late 1960s that a paradigm shift occurred and Continental Drift was accepted into the fold of scientific orthodoxy. |
Links: C.W. Post - Department of Earth and Environmental Science Continental Drift and Plate Tectonics GLY 511 - Fall 1998, Plate Tectonics I, Plate Tectonics II, Plate Tectonics III