What (if anything) did Wegener propose as a mechanism for continental drift? Did this help or hurt his ability to convince other scientists at the time?

1 Answer
Jan 22, 2015

Wegener was the original scientists to propose the idea of continental drift.

At the time, continental drift was a mere hypothesis based on fact the continents seemed to fit together, almost like a puzzle piece. However, due to limited resources, Wegener was not able to prove his theory, thus leading to many scientists doubting his claims. As the geologist Barry Willis stated; “further discussing it merely incumbers the literature and befogs the minds of other students” . After that, further discussion stopped until the 1960’s for continental drift to come up once more.