Wegener's Folly: He Thought the Earth Moved Under His Feet
Posted: Friday, January 27, 2012
by Jack H. Schick
Mrs. Unangst's responses to my revelations encouraged me to speak up. In second grade, while we were looking at the big map of the world that she'd pulled down from above the blackboard like a window shade, I noticed that the coastlines of South America and Africa would fit together like pieces in a jig-saw puzzle, if you could somehow push the continents across the Atlantic Ocean and against each other. I raised my hand and told her about it. She said that it was an interesting observation, but the coastline shapes were just a coincidence, that the continents certainly couldn't move. I also noticed that if I leaned my head sidewise toward the right, Africa looked like a dinosaur's head. There's even a lake that looks like an eye. I raised my hand and told her that, too. She actually tipped her head to look, then said something like "My, you certainly have a good imagination." I was encouraged by her positive feedback.
I was embarrassed. My buddies mocked me for getting yelled at and for saying stupid things. But, Alice A., who was real smart, said that she agreed with me, that the Great Lakes really did look like a monster. It made me feel a little better, but it didn't change my attitude toward Mrs. Unangst. From then on, I was hesitant to share my observations. I'm not sure if anybody except Alice and I thought the Great Lakes looked like a monster, but I certainly wasn't the first person to notice that Brazil would nestle nicely into the west coast of Africa between Nigeria and Angola--if only the continents could move.
Of course, prior to 1492, there was no possibility of the observation being made. There were no maps of South America. The first person we know of who suggested something was suspicious about the shapes of the continents was Abraham Ortelius, (1527-1598). He was a Flemish-man who produced the first modern atlas in 1570. Writer, W.J. Kious said: "In his work, Thesaurus Geographicus, [Ortelius] suggested that the Americas were ‘torn away from Europe and Africa…by earthquakes and floods' and went on to say: ‘The vestiges of the rupture reveal themselves, if someone brings forward a map of the world and considers carefully the coast of the three [continents].'" This was the first time that a speculation of major, lateral continental movement was documented.
Over the years, other ‘scientists' noted the curious, matching shape of continents and commented on it in their writings; Francis Bacon in 1620, Theodor Christoph Lilienthal, in 1756, Alexander von Humboldt in 1801 and, Antonio Snider-Pellegrini in 1858. Others suggested that, at one time, all the continents were joined in a single landmass, and that it broke apart and the continents had somehow "drifted" to their current locations. Scientific papers discussing the idea were produced by Franklin Coxworthy between 1848 and 1890, by Roberto Mantovani, 1889-1909 and others. John Perry wrote a paper in 1895 that attempted to explain the mechanism of continental movement. Though scoffed at, he correctly postulated that the interior of the Earth was fluid and that the continents were floating on it.
Alfred L. WegenerThe idea of a single, original continent and the drift hypothesis was finally, "officially" presented to the German Geological Society on January 6, 1912, by meteorologist, astronomer Alfred Lothar Wegener (1880-1930). He published the book, The Origin of the Continents and Oceans in 1915. Wegener was not well liked and his ideas were unanimously and vehemently rejected. He had diverse interests in fields of study outside his own area of expertise and was treated with hostility for "invading" other scientists' territories. In addition, he was unable to provide a convincing explanation of how the continents could move. The president of the American Philosophical Society called Wegener's ideas, "Utter, damned rot!" A British geologist said, "Anyone who valued is reputation for scientific sanity would never dare support such a theory."
Until the mid to late 20th Century, most scientists believed that the continents were fixed in their current locations. They claimed that uplifting and subsidence adequately explained geologic changes and the fact that sea life fossils were found at the tops of mountains. Charles Darwin was a proponent of the fixed, but rising and falling land surface theory. However, his contemporary and fellow evolutionist Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), had begun to wonder about ‘traditional' geologic processes while studying animal life in the southwest Pacific. The Wallace Line, a well defined biogeographic boundary that he ‘drew' in Indonesia, has since been discovered to follow the edge of continental plates. In the mid-19thCentury, Wallace suspected, but never vigorously promoted, the idea of large landmass movements. Wegener was aware of Wallace's ‘suspicions.'
Fossil SimilaritiesWegener accepted John Perry's theory that the Earth's interior was fluid. He saw it as a possible answer, suggesting that continental movement could be caused by the centrifugal force that resulted from the Earth's rotation, or by the ‘waver' in the Earth's axis or by the slight gravitational variation that caused the Earth to flatten and bulge at the equator. However, all of his "guesses" were mathematically calculated and none produced sufficient force to move continents.
Wegener also speculated about sea-floor spreading along the mid-oceanic ridges. In one of his papers he said:"The Mid-Atlantic Ridge…zone in which the floor of the Atlantic, as it keeps spreading, is continuously tearing open and making space for fresh, relatively fluid and hot sima (magma) [rising] from depth." As we know now, this is one of the driving force behind continental drift. However, Wegener did not follow up on the idea in his later works and failed to make the appropriate connection. After all, he was not a geologist.
Alfred Wegener was, however, a pioneering meteorologist and climatologist. He was the first to extensively use ‘weather balloons' to track air masses. For a time, he held the world record for remaining aloft in a balloon for 52 consecutive hours. His, The Thermodynamics of the Atmosphere, became a standard meteorology text book. At a time before the existence of jet streams was generally accepted, Wegener participated in several expeditions to Greenland to study polar air circulation. He and fellow meteorologist J.P. Koch were the first scientists to winter over on the icecap in northeast Greenland.
A quest for proof and an explanation for his firmly held belief in continental movement became almost an obsession for Wegener. Wherever he traveled he constantly looked for supporting evidence. He analyzed rocks and geological structures in Greenland and on either side of the Atlantic. He discovered similarities between fossils and mineral deposits. He pored over Mantovani's maps and the research done by Pellegrini, Wallace and others. He sketched his own maps, tying together similar rock and fossil formations, bringing remote coast lines together based on the findings (South America sure fit nicely against Africa). He believed he had the physical evidence of "Urkontinent" (the original continent), and "die Verschiebung der Kontinente" (the drift of continents), but he couldn't explain how or why they moved.
In April, 1930, with his continental drift theory still considered to be absurd by the scientific community, Wegener set out on another expedition to Greenland. The goal was to establish several weather observation stations, including "Eismitte" (Ice-center), on the glacier covered island continent. It was the first proposed 12 month monitoring of arctic weather. A base camp was set up on the west coast. Eismitte was 250 miles inland at an altitude of 9843 feet. Wegener felt personally responsible for the expedition's success because he'd secured funding from the German government at a time when Germans were still starving due to inflation and post-war shortages.
The success of the mission depended on transferring enough supplies form West Camp to Eismitte so that two men could winter over on the ice. A late thaw delayed ships from Europe and put deliveries six weeks behind schedule. As the summer ended, the men at Eismitte sent a message that they did not have enough fuel to last the winter and would abandon the station on October 20. Failure by the expedition was unacceptable to Wegener. On September 24, 1930, he set out by dog sled with thirteen Greenlanders and fellow meteorologist Fritz Loewe to deliver more supplies.
The sun hung low in the arctic autumn sky. The trail markers were, for the most part, buried in snow. During the journey, that took over three weeks, temperatures dropped to 76 degrees below zero, Fahrenheit. Loewe's feet became so frost bitten his toes had to be amputated with a penknife, with no anesthetic. Twelve of the Greenlanders gave up and returned to West Camp. Through sheer determination, Wegener, Loewe and native, Rasmus Villumsen, arrived at Eismitte on October 19, one day before the occupants had determined to leave.
Wegener and Villumsen at EismitteEven with the supplies Wegner delivered there was only enough for three men to winter over. After a brief rest Wegener and Villumsen, took two dog sleds and headed back to West Camp. Loewe was unable to travel and stayed at Eismitte with the two ‘observers.' They took no dog food on the return trip, killing them, one by one, to feed the others. When there were only enough dogs left to run one sled, Villumsen drove and Wegener skied along behind. They never arrived at West Camp.
A supply expedition was sent to Eismitte station the following spring, and, on May 12, 1931, they found Wegener's body. He'd made it about halfway back to West Camp. He had been carefully buried by Villumsen. He was found fully dressed, lying on a reindeer skin in a sleeping bag. He appeared to be smiling. A crossed pair of skis marked the site. Wegener was fifty years old. It is believed he died of heart failure caused by overexertion. He was a heavy smoker and not it prime physical condition. His body was reburied at the same spot and the grave marked with a 20 foot iron cross. No further sign of the twenty-three year old Villumsen, who undoubtedly continued his journey toward West Camp, was ever found.
It was almost twenty-five years before another dog sled team passed the site of Wegener's grave. There was no sign of it. The cross was gone. During that span of time the glacier ice continued to move, grinding and tearing itself to pieces on its way to the sea. It took Wegener's body along with it. During that span of time, according to modern estimates, Greenland and the North American tectonic plate of the Earth's crust moved 125 centimeters toward the northwest.
During the spring of my year in Mrs. Unangst's class a comet visited our solar system and blazed across the nighttime sky. We didn't talk about it much in class. When Alice A. asked Mrs. Unangst what comets were made of, since my mom was interested in astronomy, she turned to me and said, "Your mother knows something about outer space. Do you know what are comets made of?"
I said, "Mostly ice."
Mrs. Unangst gave me that same look she gave me when I mentioned the Great Lakes monster and, in front of the whole class, she hollered at me, "Don't be ridiculous! For goodness sake, it's on fire!"
It hurt my feelings. When I got home I told my mom what had happened and we looked it up in a book. It said that comets were made of dust and stones and mostly…of ice. I still wondered about the coasts of Africa and South America every time we looked at the world map but, it would be another decade before the books would ‘talk about' Alfred Lothar Wegener's theory of continental drift. It would be another twenty years before they would name a research institute after him, before they'd name craters on the Moon and Mars and an asteroid after him. So I just had to keep on believing that continents could not move for a little while longer.
Tectonic plates as we know them today
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Top-level comments on this article: (5 total)Wow, your teacher sure was an ignorant fool. Good for you for being smart.
Should I blame a teacher's union?That was in the1950's! thing were different.
I wonder what will be named for you when they discover the great lakes are really the remains of a prehistoric monster.Thanks for reading and commenting. I hope they have the wisdom to know the difference.
As usual this is a tremendous piece. I remember in 1960 in 6th grade and the "revolutionary" idea of tectonic plates was being taught as probably true. It was thrilling to me then just because of the way South America fit into Africa, and the way India slammed into Asia. Great writing.Thanks, as usual. I learn a lot myself doing this kind. A spark of interest on my part, a little bit of thought as to how to relate it to my own experiences, and then a lot of research. I'd like to do one of Alfred Wallace-- Darwin's kiss-up, yes man.
You don't think this one offendes those who Greg wrote about recently, do you?Now that would be truly controversial, perk up people's angst, and get a lot of fan appreciation too. That formula that you just mentioned is the formula I use too. It's more fun to use personal history, relating it, and then toss in fun research. People don't like being told what to do, but they love reading what a fool you were, or how dumb you used to be, but now are a little smarter, and then toss in some cool stuff. Here's to you.Wallace is a tough one to squeeze into 2500 words. I'm working on it.
This is such a great piece of research. Oceanography class in college had a lot about tectonic plates, and the movements of them. We don't know the details "of how God moved water and land to make earth, besides those observations you made at such a young student were good. Your enthusiasm for knowledge makes me wonder how high your IQ is? MENSA quality, probably.The god Pele, he of vocanos and magma, moves the earth. It's about 130
The spiritual God is within me and moves my consciousness and allows me to see the truth of the material world.
I remember Mrs. Unangst. Not one of my favorite teachers.There is, of course, some poetic license used in most of my essays. Thanks for reading and commenting
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