86 | Great Geologists
that were strongly suggestive of a supercontinent assembly
were dismissed for the want of a theory to explain them.
Not all eminent geologists of the time were opposed to
Wegener’s ideas. The South African Alexander du Toit
published a comprehensive favourable comparison of South
American and African geology in 1927 and published Our
Wandering Continents in 1937. The British geologist Arthur
Holmes provided an illustration of how convention currents
in the mantle could drive continental movement in 1929, an
argument that Wegener himself had advanced in later editions
of his “Origins…” book. To quote Holmes “granted convection
currents the continents may open out and reclose in an endless
pattern of varieties.”
Nonetheless many of the leading geologists of the time,
especially Americans such as Charles Schuchert, Edward
Berry (an article entitled “Germanic Pseudo-Science” gives
a flavour of his sentiments) and Bailey Willis, were “united in
a crusade against mobilism” and remained staunchly against
continental drift for the entirety of their careers. It would take
the 1960’s development of plate tectonic theory drawn from
oceanographic and paleomagnetic observations to convince
geologists that Wegener had been right in his hypothesis that
the continents were not fixed.
Wegener died not long after his 50th birthday in 1930 when
participating in his fourth Greenland expedition. After delivering
supplies by dog-sled to the Eismitte research station near the
centre of the Greenland ice sheet, he suffered an apparent
heart attack on the return journey on skis to the west coast.
His body was buried by his Inuit companion (who himself
perished soon after) and discovered the following year. At
the request of his widow, his grave remains on Greenland,
the location of some of his most important meteorological
research.
What is striking about Wegener’s geological work is the
holistic approach he took. For him, “the forces which displace
continents are the same as those which produce great fold-
mountain ranges. Continental drift, faults and compressions,
earthquakes, volcanicity, transgression cycles and polar
wandering are undoubtedly connected causally on a grand
scale.” No geologist today would argue with the sentiment of
this conclusion. We owe a great debt to Alfred Wegener for
directing geological thought to this bigger picture.
REFERENCES
This essay has drawn upon information from the following
sources:
Frankel, H.R. 2012. The Continental Drift Controversy. Volume
I: Wegener and the Early Debate. Cambridge University Press.
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Gohau, G. 1990. A History of Geology. Rutgers University Press.
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Greene, M.T. 1982. Geology in the Nineteenth Century. Cornell
University Press. 324pp.
Greene, M.T. 2015. Alfred Wegener. John Hopkins University
Press. 675pp.
Hallam, A. 1973. A Revolution in the Earth Sciences. Clarendon
Press, Oxford. 127pp.
Hallam, A. 1983. Great Geological Controversies. Oxford
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Lawrence, D.M. 2002. Upheaval from the Abyss. Rutgers
University Press, 284pp.
Le Grand, H.E. 1988. Drifting Continents and Shifting Theories.
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Molnar, P. 2015. Plate Tectonics: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford
University Press, 136pp.
Oldroyd, D.R. 1996. Thinking About the Earth. The Athlone Press,
410pp.
Oreskes, N. 1999. The Rejection of Continental Drift. Oxford
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Powell, J.L. 2015. Four Revolutions in the Earth Sciences.
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