Take a moment to look at an image of the Earth today. Notice the continents and how they are arranged on the globe. As your eyes scan the globe you may start to notice certain features. Trace the eastern coastline of South America, then look east and trace the western coastline of Africa. These two widely separated continents seem to resemble two separate pieces of a larger jigsaw puzzle. North America, too, seems to mirror the western coastline of Europe. Other pieces to the puzzle exist, but the region of the Atlantic Ocean is the most obvious clue to a theory first proposed in the early 20th century and that today is the foundation for much of geological theory and study. This early theory was called Continental Drift and was the first concentrated effort to explain these jigsaw puzzle pieces. Today the idea of "drifting continents" has been replaced by the scientific evidence of Plate Tectonics, it is important to understand this early theory and the role it played in shaping geology in the 20th century.
The obvious jigsaw nature of the continents that bound the Atlantic Ocean was realized as early as 1801.
Alexander von Humboldt (1769 - 1859) pointed out that not only were the coastlines parallel but that rocks found on both continents were similar. Von Humboldt theorized that this was evidence of erosion of a much large continent over time. Another scientist, Antonio Snider suggested in 1858 that the unique coastlines was the result of a catastrophic split of the continents and that America might even be the ancient continent of Atlantis! An American geologist, Frank Taylor, even published a theory on continental drift in 1910, but the scientific community mostly ignored his work at the time.
In 1911 a German meteorologist, Alfred Wegener (1880-1930) took up the puzzle of the similar coastlines. Wegener, born on 1 November, 1880, studied astronomy at the University of Berlin where he received his Ph.D in 1904. Wegener never practice astronomy, instead entering the field of meteorology and climatology. He used kites and balloons to study the upper atmosphere and in 1906 set a world endurance record with his brother Kurt by staying aloft in a balloon for 52 hours. Due to his research into upper air currents Wegener was invited to join a Danish expedition to Greenland to study polar air currents. Wegener made the first of several journeys to Greenland in 1906.
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