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USGS CMG InfoBank: Continental Drift

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Comment: 02:46 - 03:44 (00:58)

Source: Annenberg/CPB Resources - Earth Revealed - 5. The Birth of a Theory

Keywords: "Alfred Wegener", "Robert Douglas", "continental drift", "Atlantic Ocean", Africa, "South America", continent

Our transcription: In 1912, Scientist Alfred Wegener introduced his "Theory of Continental Drift", which sought to explain this similarity.

Alfred Wegener's one of the individuals, who in the Twentieth Century has had a major influence on geological thought.

He observed like several before him the geographic relationship along the Atlantic Ocean, and that the obvious match between, particularly, the African and South American continent.

This led him to conclude that the surface of the Earth, that the continents were not stable but, in fact, mobile and led to his idea of drifting continents.

At the time it was not accepted; it was not well accepted in either geological or other scientific thought but ultimately became the foundation for what was a real revolution in geology.

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