Question

‘After all Alfred Wegner was not wrong in his hypothesis’. Discuss the validity or otherwise of this statement.

Answer 1

Answer:

The concept was independently and more fully developed by Alfred Wegener in 1912, but his theory was rejected by many for lack of any motive mechanism. Arthur Holmes later proposed mantle convection for that mechanism.

Answer 2

‘After all Alfred Wegener was not wrong in his hypothesis’

Explanation:

• A German physicist, named Alfred Wegener, sixty years earlier argued that the continents were moving and gave a history of their movement. It was not until in the 1960s new evidence emerged that his theory had been recognized.
• The hypothesis that continental Drift (Pangaea) shifted through geological time toward each other,therefore  appearing to have "drifted" across the ocean bed. Alfred Wegener developed the idea independently and in greater detail in 1912, but many dismissed his hypothesis, since there was no motive mechanism
• The later geological evidence for Pangaea included the presence in continents of related and identical species which are now quite distant. For examples, some fossils of therapsid Lystrosaurus were found in India , Antartic, and South Africa, , along with members of the Glossopteris flora whose spread ranges from the polar circle to the equator had the continents been in their present position; likewise, Mesosaurus freshwater reptiles were found in only scattered regions on the coast of the provinces of Brazil and the West Africa
• In the geology of the neighboring continents more support for Pangaea is found, including the related geological variations between South America's eastern coast and the west coast of Africa. The polar ice cap filled the southern part of Pangaea from the Carboniferous Period. Glacial deposits are present in several different continents of the same age and composition and would have been in the Pangaea region together.
• Hence, from this one can say that "After all Alfred Wegner was not wrong in his hypothesis"