Pangaea Scientific Theory

Millions of years ago Pangaea is what was believed to be, and now has evidence to support, the first continent on earth. It is referred to as the super continent as all existing continents were connected to it. In Greek, Pangaea is defined as “all the earth”; the man who came up with theory was Alfred Wegener. Wegener had a PhD in astronomy but always had an interest in geoscience. “Wegener was browsing in the university library when he came across a scientific paper that listed fossils of identical plants and animals found on opposite sides of the Atlantic” (UCMP, Alfred Wegener). This paper sparked quite an interest for Wegener, and he began to research this topic extensively. He knew to prove this “crazy” theory he would have
As he began to look at the borders of all the continents he noticed that the borders could almost fit together like puzzle pieces. Next, he found similar fossils in different continents. How could tropical fossils like ferns be found in the North Pole where there is no possible way a tropical plant could possibly grow in the cold climate of the arctic regions? It didn’t add up for Wegener, he then believed that the climate was much different when Pangaea was around two hundred million years because of the different places animals were able to live at the time, then millions found as fossils where it would have been impossible for them to grow and survive in that geographical place due to climate, and resources needed to survive. So he has this evidence that at some point all these continents were connected, but how did they split apart was the biggest question asked. He decided to publish a book that explained his thinking behind the theory of “continental drift”. Many didn’t buy a word of the theory “continental drift” that Wegener was trying to prove, the fact that he had no idea how the continents split, ripped, or in some fashion formed the present-day formation of what the earth is modeled like today was his most
His main thought was that land was moving under the earth’s first layer of crust. The movement under the earth’s surface was like the movement of how icebergs interact with each other, constant tension and energy building up to the point of a break. Although this was a good hypothesis of how land moves, he had no scientific evidence that could back this up, which again caused people not to buy into his theory of continental drift. His research of earth’s surface being able to move through earth’s crust was shown to be impossible, there would be no way enough force could have built up for that to happen. If it were at all possible, the earth’s surface would not be able to uphold the force, causing it to fall apart into tiny pieces. According to scientists, the force would cause earth’s rotation to stop in less than a year. Wegener passed away in 1930, most of his research and work was not generally accepted by the science community, for the most part they stuck to their original thoughts that did not support Wegener’s theory of continental