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  • Alfred Wegener was a German meteorologist and geophysicist that came up with the theory that all of the continents were once connected together 225 Million years ago in a big continent called a supercontinent, which he named Pangaea which is the Greek word meaning "all lands".

 

  • He was born on the 1 November 1880 in Berlin, Germany.

  • He was the youngest of five children.

  • He went to school at the Köllnische Gymnasium in Berlin.

  • He studied Physics, Meteorology, and Astronomy.

  • Alfred took an interest to physical science and Earth science and studied both of these subjects at university.

  • In 1905 he graduated with a PHD in Astronomy from the University of Berlin.

  • Alfred also took an interest in meteorology and paleoclimatology while earning his PHD, this led onto Alfred taking an expedition into Greenland to study the polar weather there in 1906 to 1908.

  • He started to teach at the University of Marburg in Germany. During his time teaching at the university Alfred noticed that the east coastline of South America and the northwest coastline of Africa looked like they were once connected. 

  • In 1911 Alfred came across scientific documents at the university stating that there were identical fossils of plants and animals on each of these continents and after reading these documents he claimed that the Earth's continents were at once connected together forming a supercontinent.

 

  • He was picked to fight for the Germans when WW1 broke out and got injured twice but then was placed in the Army's weather forecasting service for the rest of the war.

 

  • During his time in the war he published his most famous book called The Origin of Continents and Oceans.

  • Later in his life in 1930 he lead his last expedition of 14 explorers including himself to Greenland the set up a winter weather station that would monitor the jet stream in the upper atmosphere over the northern pole.

 

  • Bad weather delayed the start of the expedition. During the expedition his whole group would go back but Alfred went on alone and got to the location five weeks after starting the expedition. On the trip back Alfred became lost and he died in November 1930.

 

 

ALFRED WEGENER

Alfred Wegener in Greenland.

The snow mobiles used for the expedition.

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