WGCG Spring 2021 Newsletter - Flipbook - Page 17
WGCG
Spring 2021 Newsletter
Suess had already proposed that these areas must have been located close to each other in a
supercontinent he called Gondwanaland (now usually called Gondwana). However, geologists could
not agree on the explanations of how Gondwanaland came apart. Wegener’s insight and
imaginative breakthrough was to see that you could explain the breakup by moving the continents
(Kontinentalverschiebung - literally continental displacement but translated as Continental Drift).
As a meteorologist he had the advantage of not being bound by, the then, competing geological
dogmas.
It took 40 years, or more, to unravel the mechanisms and establish Plate Tectonics as a
core concept in geology.
Alfred Wegener was also an explorer. Starting in 1906 he took part in three expeditions to
Greenland and led a fourth in 1930.
Wegener as an
explorer
He researched polar climates, and pioneered measuring wind flow using kites and tethered balloons.
He produced a standard textbook on meteorology as well as his better remembered book on The
Origin of Continents and Oceans (fully revised edition 1922). He died on the fourth expedition while
attempting to rescue some stranded and starving colleagues. It is interesting that he is remembered
on the Austrian memorial stamp as ‘Grunland Forscher’ - Greenland Researcher/(Explorer).
Austrian postage stamp from 1980 presumably for the 50th anniversary of
Wegener's death.
17