How did Alfred Wegener come up with the theory continental drift and what back up did he have?
In 1911, Alfred Wegener was a lecturer of astronomy and meteorology at a German university. He was a widely-read and highly respected professional, and despite the legacy he left to geological science, astronomy and meteorology were the basis of his professional credentials throughout his life. Browsing his university library that day (aged 31) he chanced upon a paper that expounded the theory of a land bridge between Brazil and Africa, which was a commonly held view of that time. The evidence her read there, that of fossils species that could not have crossed the ocean but were found on both sides of it, was a surprise to him, and caught his imagination. This chance find thus started his lifelong-obsession – which became the most significant advance of 20th Century geological thinking. Like many others before him, Wegener had noted the match of the African and South America continents, and considered that they might once have been joined. However, like those others before him, he too
