Continental Drift

What 2 forces were proposed by Wegener for how the continents moved?

1. Centrifugal force

2. Tidal forces

What is centrifugal force and what did he believe it was doing to the continents? What was tidal force doing to the continents?

Centrifugal force is what causes you to spin to the outside of a turn in a car. He believed that it was causing our continents to move to lower latitudes. Tidal forces were pulling the continents towards the moon and sun.

What did Wegener believe the bottom of the ocean was made of? How do this impact his mechanism of how continental drift occurred?

Believed the bottom of the ocean was made of plastic that solid continents could move through (were deformable ocean basins)

What are three criticisms of Wegener?

1. Ocean basins are actually floored by solid, rigid basalt (rock)

2. Proposed forces were also too weak

3. Geopolitics also was incorporated as he was German and he developed his theory of continental drift around the time of WWI so many scientists were biased against German scientists.