On January 6, 1912. German scientist Alfred Wegener introduced a new theory that would come to change how we understand our world. A meteorologist and polar researcher by trade, Wegener had recently developed an interested in geophysics, which as part of the rush in the early 20th century to explain the age of the earth, had caused him to examine
Wegener’s theory was nothing new, but was the most completely researched and well thought out version brought forth to that point in time. It first occurred to him when he noticed that the coastlines of North and South America seemed to compliment those of Europe and Africa. That hint of an idea - that perhaps these areas had once been joined together and then split apart - kicked off the research that would form the basis of his theory of continental drift. He wasn’t the first to have such an idea, but he did take it several steps further when he began to corroborate his story using fossil samples and geologic evidence. He put forth that it was past proximity, rather than coincidence, that left mountain ranges and coastal rock formations on either side of the Atlantic comprised of the same geologic materials. They weren’t similar because it just happened that way, he asserted, but rather because they grew up together before drifting apart.
His theory was missing one key component, and was met with criticism and rejection because of its omission. Wegener could show, with significant evidence, that these areas now separated by thousands of miles of ocean were once in close contact, but he had no solid clues as to the mechanism by which they moved apart. Some had theorized that the Earth was expanding and that our continents would continue to drift further and further apart as the surface area grew. But there was little evidence to support this, and no real answer to the question of how our continents, immeasurably heavy as they are, could simply move about the surface of the planet.
Continental drift, while the best theory presented, would go unproven and largely unaccepted by the scientific and global community until the discovery of plate tectonics. The notion that our continents and oceans sit on a series of plates that shift and jostle about the surface the planet, propelled by the heat energy of its core, was enough, when paired with Wegener’s theory of continental drift, to prove it all true and finally explain the phenomena Wegener had discovered. But sadly, the acceptance of plate tectonics, and in turn continental drift, came decades after Wegener had passed. He would never know of his important contribution to how we understand our world’s past, present, and future.