EQ: What was Alfred Wegener’s hypothesis and what evidence did he provide to support his...

EQ: What was Alfred Wegener’s hypothesis and what evidence did he provide to support his hypothesis?

Alfred Wegener“He’s the Man”

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Phrases & Words:

* Alfred WegenerWagener's hypothesis was that all the continents had once been joined together in a single landmass and have since drifted apart.

Pangaea (from the Greek for "all the Earth")

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Pangaea's Moving Farther Apart Again

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Pangaea- the name Wagener gave to the super continent, meaning “all lands”

Wagener believed that Pangaea had broken apart and that the pieces had slowly moved to become the continents they are today

Pangaea (from the Greek for "all the Earth")

The idea that the continents slowly moved over Earth’s surface

1) Evidence from Landforms

1) Evidence from Landforms

2) Evidence from Fossils

Fossil- any trace of an ancient organism preserved in rock

3) Evidence from Climate

Alfred Wegener“Crust in Pieces”

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1) Many OTHER geologists believed that the mountains formed by the cooling and shrinking of Earth.

2) Wegener thought mountains formed when drifting continents collided, causing their edges to crumple and fold.

3) Wegener could not provide a satisfactory explanation for the force that pushes or pulls the continents.Wegener died in 1930 on an expedition to Greenland’s continental glacier. He died before scientist excepted his theory on “Continental Drift”Video

“Alfred Wegener Speaks out!”

Continental Drift

1. What was Wegener’s theory of continental drift?

The idea that the continents slowly moved over Earth’s surface

2. What were the three types of evidence Wegener used to support his theory of continental drift?

Evidence form landforms

Evidence form fossils

Evidence form climate

3. How did Wegener use evidence based on fossils to support his theory that the continents has moved?

Fossils leaves of Glossopteris are found in rocks in Africa, South America, Australia, India, and Antarctica.

4. What is Pangaea?

Supercontinent- where all the continents were once joined together

5. What was the main reason scientists rejected Wegener’s theory of continental drift?

Wegener could not provide a satisfactory explanation for the force that pushes or pulls the continents

6. How did Wegener think that mountains formed?

He thought they formed when drifting continents collided, causing their edges to crumple and fold

7. How do the locations of mountains support Wegener’s idea about how mountains form?

Mountains usually occur in narrow bands along the edges of continents, as you would expect if the collision of continents forms mountains

8. What is a fossil?

any trace of an ancient organism preserved in rock

9. Why was Wegener’s hypothesis rejected?

He could not provide a satisfactory explanation of the force to “move” continents.