Who Is Alfred Wegener?

Alfred Wegener is the man that introduced us to the Continental Drift Theory. He spent many years looking for clues from the past to support his idea of drifting continents. Alfred discovered many plants and fossils in many different Continents that where supposedly all together, at one time when they were together it was called Pangaea (Pangaea is the name for what included all current land masses, believed to have been in existence before the continents broke apart during the Jurassic Periods). For example some fossil evidence he found was the Mesosaurus is a fresh water reptile and it’s found in Africa and South America, although there’s an ocean between Africa and South America, there is no way the reptile swam. Also knowing that this reptile was of found on India and Antarctica, Antarctica had to be joined with India and was once warm. Lystrosaurus is a land reptile and is found in India, which is warm, and Antarctica, which there is a ocean in between them as well. Last but not least the Cynogothus is also a land reptile so it cannot swim and it is found in South America and Africa. Wegener used Land Features for his theory and the coasts fit together like a puzzle, so in that case they all had to be joined together at one point in time. “Similar groups of rocks, older than 200 million …show more content…
“The presence of these 290 million year old deposits suggested to Wegener that these areas were once covered by a thick ice cap similar to the one that covers Antarctica today.” (textbook page 471) “ The traces of the ancient ice caps are found in regions where it is too warm for them to develop, Wegener proposed that they were once located near the South Pole.” (textbook page 471) Wegener also used coal deposits from deposition and compaction accumulation from ancient swamp plants. That shows and proves that long time ago it was like a tropical