Alfred Wegener

German scientist (1880–1930) who proposed continental drift in 1912, was rejected by his contemporaries, and died on an Greenland expedition before vindication.

Continental drift: Wegener's 1912 hypothesis that continents move horizontally across Earth's surface through the oceanic crust. The hypothesis Wegener named, defended, and never convincingly powered with a mechanism.
Land bridges: The hypothesis that now-separated continents were once joined by sunken isthmuses. The mainstream alternative to drift; sunken bridges contradicted isostasy and left no trace.
Harry Hammond Hess: American geologist who proposed seafloor spreading in 1960 as the mechanism drift lacked. His seafloor spreading supplied what Wegener never could: a workable driving mechanism.
Greenland expeditions: Four Danish-led expeditions Wegener joined or led between 1906 and 1930 to study Greenland's ice cap. The polar meteorology that anchored Wegener's career and where he died at Eismitte.
Seafloor spreading: The 1960s discovery that new oceanic crust forms at mid-ocean ridges and spreads outward. The decisive vindication: measured seafloor motion made continental movement unavoidable.
The Origin of Continents and Oceans: Wegener's 1915 book laying out drift evidence, revised through four editions until 1929. The full argument in one text, expanded each edition to answer accumulating objections.
Isostasy: The principle that crust floats in gravitational balance on the denser mantle below. Widely taken to forbid continents plowing through rock, the core physical objection to drift.
Alfred Wegener Medal: The European Geosciences Union medal, first awarded in 1981, named for Wegener. The discipline that ridiculed him later made his name a scientific honor.
Eismitte: The mid-ice research station on Greenland's ice cap where Wegener's party wintered in 1930–31. Wegener died crossing the ice to resupply this camp in November 1930.
Paleomagnetism: The record of past magnetic field directions frozen into rocks at their formation. Polar-wander paths from different continents matched Wegener's reconstructions, converting skeptics in the 1950s.

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