Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Alfred Wegner and Continental Drift

Episode Date: September 20, 2021

In 1910, a German Earth scientist noticed something about the map of the world. South America seemed to fit into Africa. North America seemed to fit into northwest Africa and Europe. He proposed that the continents may at one time have been joined and subsequently moved. The scientific community laughed at him and rejected his idea. Learn more about Alfred Wegener and the theory of Continental Drift, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1910, a German earth scientist noticed something about the map of the world. South America seemed to fit into Africa. North America seemed to fit into northwest Africa in Europe. He proposed that the continents may have at one time been joined and subsequently moved. The scientific community laughed at him and rejected his idea. Learn more about Alfred Veginer and the theory of continental drift on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Do you ever climb into bed ready to sleep only to have your mind start raced?

the moment your head hits the pillow? Thoughts bouncing around, replaying the day or jumping ahead to tomorrow? That is exactly why Catherine Nikolai created Nothing Much Happens. Each episode is a gentle, cozy bedtime story where, well, nothing much happens. No drama, no tension, nothing you need to follow closely. Just soft narration, calming repetition, and soothing sensory details designed to help your mind slow down and your body relax. It's not about entertainment, it's about rest. And millions of listeners around the world use it every day, night to quiet their thoughts and finally fall asleep. If you've ever struggled to shut your brain off at night, this might be exactly what

you've been missing. You can listen to Nothing Much Happens wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes are every Monday and Thursday. This episode is sponsored by Brilliant.org. Brilliant's mission is to inspire and develop people to achieve their goals in STEM, one person, one question, and one small commitment to learning at a time. They enable great teachers to illuminate the soul of math, science, and engineering through bite-sized interactive learning experiences. Their courses explore the laws that shape our world,

elevating math and science from something to be feared to a delightful experience of guided discovery. If you're interested in learning more about any STEM subject, go to everything-everywhere.com slash brilliant. Once again, that's everything-everywhere.com slash brilliant. Alfred Feigener was a really interesting guy. Born in 180 in Germany, got his degree in astronomy, but became a meteorologist, which was still a rather new field at the time. time. His primary interest was in the northern polar regions and how air circulated. He participated in four expeditions to Greenland and was one of the first meteorologists to adopt the use of weather balloons. However, meteorology and expeditions to Greenland aren't what Alfred Vegener

is best known for. It's for his contributions to geology and geophysics. The idea that he is remembered for began innocently enough on Christmas Day 1910. He was at his friend's house when he began and looking at his brand new World Atlas. He made the observation that South America and Africa seemed like they fit together like pieces in a puzzle. I should note that he was far from the first person to notice this. Once decent maps began being published in the last part of the 16th century, people first observed the same thing. The first person we know of who made the observation was Dutch cartographer Abraham Ortelius. Orteleus created the first modern Atlas in 1570, which means he was probably the first person to have

the idea because no one before that really had a good grasp of the geography of the continents. William Coyas wrote in his book on Geologic History, quote, Abraham Orteleus, in his work, The Thoris Geographicus, suggested that the Americas were torn away away from Europe and Africa by earthquakes and floods, and went on to say, the vestiges of the rupture reveal themselves if someone brings forward a map of the world and considers carefully the coasts of the three continents, end quote. Orteleus was far from alone. after him the idea that the continents fit together somehow kept popping up.

Theodore Christoph Lillenthal, Alexander von Humboldt, Antonio Snyder Pellegrini, and Alfred Russell Wallace all made the same observation one or 200 years before. Moreover, there were several other scientists just a decade before who came to a similar conclusion. In fact, there's a good chance that you probably made the same observation, one of the first times that you saw a world map. Veginer took the idea to another level, however. He began by cutting up maps and piecing the land masses together like a puzzle. He was able to put the continents together into one giant continent that he named Pangea,

from the Greek words for all and land. I should note that Veginar wasn't just piecing together the land that we can see today, but the continental shelves, which actually fit together much better. This would be sea levels about 200 meters lower than what they are today. However, this wasn't just a physical puzzle. Shapes could sort of fit together by coincidence. The fact that something is convex and something else is concave doesn't prove that they were once connected. Veginer then began looking for more lines of evidence, and he found lots of them.

Animals would oftentimes be similar on different continents. Marsupials in Australia looked like marsupials in South America. Moreover, the tapeworms which infected the animals on both sides were similar. Likewise, he noted similarities in plant species. as well. Laird geological formations ended on one continent and then restarted again on another continent. The Appalachian Mountains in North America are similar to the mountains found in Greenland, Ireland, Britain, and Norway. And perhaps most importantly, the location of certain fossils could be found across different continents. For example, Mesasaurus fossils, which is a small

freshwater crocodile, can only be found in Brazil and South Africa. It was inconceivable that a small reptile could cross the ocean. A land reptile called a lystosaurus was found in similar rocks in Africa, India, and Antarctica. What separated Wagner's theory from those who came before him was how thorough he assembled his evidence. He presented his theory for the first time on January 6, 1912, to the German Geological Association, and he initially called his theory Continental displacement. The records from the meeting note that there was no discussion after his presentation. In 1915, he published a book in German titled The Origins of Contents and Oceans. By that time, however, the First World War was in full swing and geology took a back seat.

There was little discussion about Veginer's theory for the next several years. It was during this time that Veginer began using the term continental drift. However, in 1922, his book was translated into English and the world of geology exploded. Almost the entire geology community worldwide came out to Nanavis. counts, Veginer. Much of this was latent anti-German sentiment that was left over from the war. American and British geologists were especially harsh. However, German geologists joined in as well. Another factor behind the vitriol was the fact that Veginer wasn't a geologist by training. He was a meteorologist and an astronomer. He wasn't staying in his lane and that upset the

sensibilities of geologists. Vega's theory was called many things, including moving crust disease, wandering pole plague, and Germanic pseudoscience. He was personally accused of having delirious ravings and, quote, toying with the evidence to spin himself into a state of auto-intoxication, unquote. Roland Chamberlain of the University of Chicago noted, quote, if we are to believe Veginer's hypothesis, we must forget everything which has been learned in the last 70 years and start all over again, unquote. Many leading geologists basically told their students that a belief in moving

continents was a sure way to quickly sink their career. To be fair, there were some serious problems with Veginer's original theory. First, his proposed rate of movement to the continents was way too fast. He thought they moved at 250 centimeters a year. Based on current measurements, his estimate was 100 times too fast. Second, he didn't offer up any explanation for how and why the continents moved. There would need to be some incredible force to move entire continents. Without this explanation, it was a very hard theory for most geologists to accept. Veginer died 1930 in Greenland while on a relief mission to bring food to a camp. After his death, his theory was mostly forgotten, and if it was mentioned at all, it was done so to denounce it.

However, starting in the 1950s, something started to happen. More evidence started coming in, and it seemed to vindicate Veginer. The discovery of paleomagnetism on the ocean floor provided strong evidence that the con continents were moving. The rock on the seafloor has a magnetic orientation which is baked into the rock when it's formed. What was found was alternating orientations, indicating that there was new rock being formed as the plate spread and as the magnetic poles shifted. Most importantly, a mechanism was found which explained how the continents moved. It was called plate tectonics. Plate tectonics was the rosetta stone for understanding all of geology. It explained why the continents moved. moved, it explained earthquakes and volcanoes, and island chains. Plate tectonics understood the world as being covered by plates. Some of them were oceanic crust and some were continental crust.

They were all moving slowly due to convection within the earth's mantle. Some plates spread apart like Europe and North America. Some plates subduct under other plates like what is happening to the Pacific Ocean in Japan. Still, other plates will pass each other like two bricks rubbing against each other, which is what's happening at the San Andreas Fault in California. In the end, Alfred Veginer was right. Sort of. His initial theory, as he proposed it, really wasn't correct,

and the term continental drift is no longer used today. However, his larger point about the continent's moving was confirmed, and it is universally accepted by geologists today. Even if Veginer wasn't totally right, his critics were totally wrong. The story at Alfred Veginer is a textbook example of the difficulty of people accepting new scientific ideas. Veganer's experience provides proof to what Nobel Prize-winning physicist Max Planck said, quote,

A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it, end quote. Or, as it's more commonly phrased, science advances one funeral at a time. The associate producers of Everything Everywhere Daily are Peter Bennett and Thor Thompson. If you'd like to support the show, please join the list of patrons over at patreon.com. And also remember, if you leave a review or send me a question, you two can have it read on the show.