​Continental Drift

The movement of continents relative to each other across the Earth’s surface is known as continental drift. Although it was subject of speculation by numerous early works, the first comprehensive case of continental drift was presented by the German meteorologist, Alfred Wegener in 1912.

• Wegener suggested that all the Earth’s land had once been joined into a single supercontinent, surrounded by an ocean. He called the land mass Pangaea (Pan = all + Gaea = Earth) and the surrounding ocean Panthalassa (Pan = all + Thalassa = Ocean).
• Wegener thought Pangaea had broken into pieces during the Carboniferous period, since then, the ....