GLG 111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Oceanic Crust, Deep Sea, Mantle Plume
Document Summary
Alfred wegner: put forth the idea of the continental drift, came up with the idea of pangea. He had evidence to support his hypothesis: the jigsaw puzzle, fossil matches across oceans, rock types and continental structures, ancient climates. Jigsaw puzzle similarities between coastlines on opposite sides of the ocean. Fossil matches fossils of the same species have been found on opposite sides of oceans. Mountain ranges on the coasts of across continents should be the same, same with types of rocks. Ancient climates glacial deposits were found in now sub-tropic regiions (s. america, s. africa) Wegner showed that ice sheets did cover these places. He found that the n. hmisphere used to be closer to the equator and thus the south was closer to the pole. Wegner was never able to explain how or why all of this happened. Took 50 years to realize he was right. By the ^0"s new developments provided new understanding.
