Continental drift

This article is about the development of the continental drift theory before 1958. For the contemporary theory, see Plate tectonics. For other uses, see Continental Drift (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with Continental drip.

Continental drift is the theory, originating in the early 20th century, that Earth's continents move or drift relative to each other over geologic time.[1] The theory of continental drift has since been validated and incorporated into the science of plate tectonics, which studies the movement of the continents as they ride on plates of the Earth's lithosphere.[2]

The speculation that continents might have "drifted" was first put forward by Abraham Ortelius in 1596. A pioneer of the modern view of mobilism was the Austrian geologist Otto Ampferer.[3][4] The concept was independently and more fully developed by Alfred Wegener in his 1915 publication, "The Origin of Continents and Oceans".[5] However, at that time his hypothesis was rejected by many for lack of any motive mechanism. In 1931, the English geologist Arthur Holmes proposed mantle convection for that mechanism.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference pubs.usgs.gov was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Oreskes-2002 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Kalliope Verbund: Ampferer, Otto (1875–1947) 
  4. ^ Helmut W. Flügel: Die virtuelle Welt des Otto Ampferer und die Realität seiner Zeit. In: Geo. Alp., Vol. 1, 2004.
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Wegener-1912 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).