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Abraham Ortelius
he Dutch map maker Abraham Ortelius suggested that the Americas, Eurasia and Africa were once joined and have since drifted apart "by earthquakes and floods" His "evidence" was the jigsaw fit of the continents. This fit is especially close when the continental shelves of the continents are considered. -
Period: to
The history of the plate tectonics theory
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James Hutton
investigated of the laws observable in the composition, dissolution, and restoration of land upon the Globe. also came up with the idea how new land was formed like with valcanoes forming ilands. his proof was finding these ingenus rocks giving proof how old the earth is by how long earth been doing this procces called formation of new crust -
Alfred Wegener
publishes his first thoughts about continental drift.That continents used to be together in a super continent called pangaea. He later on came up with a theory that supported his thoughts about continental drift called the plate tectonics theory. the key edvidence were that he found the same land dwelling fossils on the west coast of u.s, and asia .He also found the same type of rock in different placeson the earth -
Arthur Holmes
Arthur Holmes authored the classic textbook, Principles of Physical Geology. Following an idea dating back to the 1830s, revitalized in the 1930s by himself, F.A. Vening Meinesz and David Griggs, Holmes reintroduced thermal convection in the mantle as a possible mechanism for continental drift. -
Harry Hammond Hess
molten rock (magma) oozes up from the Earth's interior along the mid-oceanic ridges, creating new seafloor that spreads away from the active ridge crest and, eventually, sinks into the deep oceanic trenches.these ideas were published in a paper titled "History of Ocean Basins, -
Dan McKenzie
The viscosity of the lower mantle” he concluded that the there are two layers in the mantle, each of them in motion, which contribute to continental drift. He refuted two other models of the earth that were apparently prevalent at the time; one posited that the earth was homgeneous sphere, and the other that the core is inviscid and that the mantle is homogeneous. McKenzie's work showed that the earth is far more dynamic than previously thought and added to the growing awareness that convection
