Who proposed the theory of continental drift?

• A. Alfred Wegener
• B. Charles Lyell
• C. J. T. Hutton
• D. Harry Hess

Answer: (A)

At the heart of this idea is that the continents were once connected and have slowly moved to their current positions over geological time. Alfred Wegener first proposed this theory in the early 1900s, suggesting that all the continents formed a single giant landmass called Pangaea that fragmented and drifted apart.

He assembled a wide range of supporting evidence: the coastlines of continents like South America and Africa fit together like puzzle pieces; identical fossils and rock types appear on lands now separated by oceans; mountain belts line up across continents when reconstructions are made; and there are clues from past climates, such as evidence of ancient glaciers and tropical flora in places where those climates wouldn’t occur today. While Wegener couldn’t fully explain how the continents moved, his proposal opened the door to a new way of understanding Earth’s surface.

Other figures contributed in important ways to geology, but they did not introduce this theory. For example, prior scientists laid the groundwork about Earth's age and processes, and later researchers developed the mechanism of plate tectonics that explains how continents move today.