Photo by lee xudan
Version: beijing university press
January 2025
The origin of land and sea and the continental drifting doctrine
Wegener is a distinguished german meteorologist. Born in berlin in 1880 and obtained a doctorate in astronomy at humboldt university in berlin in 1905. However, he was more interested in geology and meteorology, so he abandoned the development of astronomy after obtaining a doctorate and specialized in meteorology. As a young and talented and aspiring scientist at the time, he had begun to emerge from his studies in meteorology in two short years after graduation and had been hired by the university of marburg, soon becoming a very popular young teacher at the university of marburg. In 1911, he produced a textbook entitled atmospheric thermal dynamics, which became a generic meteorological teaching material at the then german university. He participated in world war i in 1914 and 1915, and was wounded twice. After the war, he returned to teach at the university of marburg. After 1924, he was employed as a professor at the university of graz, austria. Weigner was unfortunately killed on his way to greenland in early november 1930。
In addition to some contributions to atmospheric dynamics, weigner has made important contributions to geology throughout his life. In summary, his contribution to geology is twofold:
One was that he first suggested that the rims on the moon were formed by meteor impacts rather than volcanic eruptions. It was then widely accepted that the circumpolar mountains on the moon had been formed mainly as a result of volcanic eruptions. This view was confirmed by the “apolo” landing programme in the late 1960s and early 1970s: the vast majority of the circumferences on the surface of the moon are craters created by meteor impact, not volcanic vents。
Another, or perhaps the greatest, contribution of weigner is his “continental drift doctrine”. In scientific history, it can be said that the introduction of some truly revolutionary scientific theories often takes a long time to be accepted. This is the case with the “continental drift doctrine” proposed by weigner in his origins of land and sea, which was gradually accepted after more than half a century of debate。
The “continental drift doctrine” is a core component of modern geology's “plate tectonic theory”. The “board tectonic theory” is a very important scientific theory in geology, covering a wide range of areas, and a very important theoretical system to guide human understanding of the earth's natural history。
Documentary film ocean (2009)。
Until the 1950s, as the perception of the earth was limited to the land sphere, a deep-rooted view prevailed in the geology community at that time that the relative position of the earth and the oceans had remained constant since its formation (the latter termed “fixion theory”). The “continental drift doctrine” of wegner, on the other hand, espouses an entirely opposing view that the relative position of land and oceans is not constant in geological history (the latter termed “activity theory”)。
Weigner first inspired “continental drift” or, in his words, “continental misalignment” from the similarities between the coasts of south america and africa on both sides of the atlantic ocean。
"mainland misalignment"? Similarity between atlantic coastlines
Wegna was not the first to note the similarities between the coastlines of the atlantic ocean and to produce the idea of “continental misalignment”. As early as the end of the 16th century, a dutch scholar noticed the phenomenon and imagined that an earthquake or major floods could have swept the continent on both sides of the atlantic ocean。
In the middle of the nineteenth century, an italian scholar made a similar point, arguing that the great floods had swept the continents on both sides of the atlantic ocean. It is clear that this view is more or less influenced by the bible and is not scientifically justified。
For wegener, that view has never disappeared from his mind since such an idea emerged. In 1911 weigner read an article by an austrian scholar, e. Suess, on gondwanaland, in 1885, at the library of the university of marburg. In this article, reference is made to several continents that were then divided by the atlantic and indian ocean (e. G. Africa, south america, india, australia and the antarctic), all of which have identical animal and plant fossils and similar geological sediment sequences, and to the fact that these continents were bound together by land bridges to form a unified continent, using a place name in india - – gondwana named the continent, but now the land bridges linking the continents have sunk to the bottom。
The documentary film david edenburg: oceans (2025)。
In the light of the instincts of weather workers about the control factors of modern global climate zone distribution, weigner noted that some of the sediments cited in this article, reflecting ancient climate information, were not distributed in a manner consistent with modern global climate zone distribution patterns. For example, in these continents, there is a widespread charco-clavic glaciation, most of which are now near mid- and low-latitudes near the equator。
Weigner cast doubt on the interpretation of traditional stereotypes. Since then, he has been collecting and collating information on a variety of ancient fossils, sediments and layers around the globe, and has conducted an analysis of ancient climates, which has led to an understanding of continental drift。
In january 1912, weigner first presented the idea of “continental drift” in an academic presentation. Academic reports had not attracted much attention at the time because of their limited reach. In 1914-1915, he was hospitalized twice with injuries during world war i, giving him time to systematically compile and document the ideas and evidence of the “continental drift doctrine” and to publish it officially in 1915. That's his origin of land and sea. The third english translation of the origin of land and sea, translated by j. G. A. Skerl in 1924, began to receive extensive attention from the academic community. However, the flaws in wegener's interpretation of the continental drifting power mechanism have kept his doctrine from being widely accepted by the scientific community. After his death, he was gradually forgotten。
The new content of the "continental drift doctrine"
In the 1940s and 1950s, as a result of the improvement in ancient magnetic testing techniques, it was possible to determine from the rocks some of the magnetic information of the earth's magnetic field at the time of formation — the remaining magnetic properties of the rock, such as magnetic inclinations and magnetic tendencies — and to use these magnetic information to extrapolate the position of ancient geographical latitudes and ancient magnetic poles。
As a result of the study, it was first found that the remaining magnetic properties of rock formations in many parts of the world reflect a lack of consistency between the ancient geolatitudes and the geographical latitudes in which these layers are now located. The magnetic polar position of the earth's magnetic field, based on the residual magnetic properties of the rock layers formed in the same area and over different periods, does not overlap not only with today's magnetic polar position, but also with each other。
Scientists at the time found that there were two possibilities to explain the phenomenon in terms of “fixion theory”: either there were many magnetic poles on the planet where we lived or there was a massive migration of the magnetic poles of the earth in geological history. The former interpretation is clearly inconceivable. In the latter case, there should be consistency in the location of the ancient magnetic poles based on the residual magnetic recovery of rocks formed during the same period around the world. However, when scientists compare the positions of the ancient magnetic poles, calculated on the basis of the residual magnetic properties of the rocks at different times in europe and north america, in chronological order, they find that the polar curves of the two continents do not overlap. At that point, scientists suddenly realized that it was not magnetic poles that were moving, but that there was a relative shift between two continents! This brings back to the “continental drift doctrine” of wagner。
The documentary film david edenburg: oceans (2025)。
In general, at the same time, there is a new understanding of the geological features of marine areas. Scientists used the sound technology invented during the second world war to map the global seafloor landscape. In the vast deep ocean, there are mountains stretching thousands of kilometres — mid-ocean ridges or central seamounts, arc trenches and volcanic island chains like the hawaiian islands. On the ocean floor, it is not as large as it used to be. The parallel-arranged geomagnetic field anomalies on both sides of the mid-ocean ridge observed by the survey have made scientists aware that the seafloor may be the result of a combination of seafloor expansion along the mid-ocean ridge and the reversal of the earth's magnetic field. This is confirmed by the age distribution pattern of deep-sea sediments: only the youngest sediment is found near the mid-ocean ridge, and the oldest sediment is found on the outer edge of the ocean。
Scientists were shocked when it was discovered that the oldest sediments on the seabed were not older than jurassic before, 200 million years ago. It's a very old ocean whose bottom is so young! This also leads scientists to believe that the seabed is constantly expanding and renewing. On the basis of the width and time frame of the magnetic strip of the seabed, scientists have accurately calculated the speed of seafloor expansion of 1-10 cm/year over 200 million years, as confirmed by modern satellite observations。
Long before the second world war, geophysicists, through the application of seismic wave technology, had learned that the earth's interior had a number of circles, such as the core, the mantle, the crust, the flounder, the rock ring, etc。
From an understanding of the expansion of the seabed and the structure of the inner circle of the earth, scientists have given a new meaning to the “continental drift doctrine”, the plate tectonic movement, and have found a new dynamic mechanism for the “continental drift doctrine”, the plate tectonic mechanism:
The earth's rock collage is made up of six large “floating” plates and several small plates bordering mid-ocean ridges and island arc trenches. Driven by heat convection, mantle matter surges near mid-ocean ridges, spreading the sea floor to both sides, driving the rock-clip plates floating on the flounders, and moving relatively horizontally across continents. In the vicinity of the island arc trenches, there was a collision between two plates, and the oceanic crust fell beneath the continental crust, which continued to diminish。
This paper is taken from the origin of land and sea (disciplinary edition) and is a guide (part) to the book. The sub-heading was added by the extractor and not in the original language. Authorised publication。
Original author/sun yuanlin
Extract/what
