Monday, March 23, 2009

A. L. Wegener

Every student of geology learns about Alfred Wegener (1880-1930), the German atmospheric scientist who showed that rocks, fossils, and mountain belts match exactly where the continents can be fitted together. As a specialist on climates, Wegener was particularly interested in the distribution of glacial deposits from the Permian geologic period found on all the southern continents. He argued that if the continents at that time were in their present positions, an ice sheet would have implausibly extended from the South Pole to the equator, covering wide expanses of open ocean. --Stephen O. Moshier, The Upper Crust, Books & Culture, July/August 2008, review of Supercontinent: Ten Billion Years in the Life of Our Planet, by Ted Nield


Recommended reading:
by A. L. Wegener at Reading Rat

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