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    Alfred Lothar Wegener (

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    Alfred Wegener was a German polar researcher and geophysicist born in 1880 who is most remembered for originating the theory of continental drift in 1912, hypothesizing that the continents slowly drift across the Earth's surface. His hypothesis was controversial and not widely accepted until the 1950s when evidence like paleomagnetism supported continental drift and plate tectonics. Wegener participated in four expeditions to Greenland between 1906-1913 to study polar climate and meteorology, making important early observations and pioneering techniques like weather balloons.

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    Alfred Lothar Wegener (

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    Leo
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    Alfred Wegener was a German polar researcher and geophysicist born in 1880 who is most remembered for originating the theory of continental drift in 1912, hypothesizing that the continents slowly drift across the Earth's surface. His hypothesis was controversial and not widely accepted until the 1950s when evidence like paleomagnetism supported continental drift and plate tectonics. Wegener participated in four expeditions to Greenland between 1906-1913 to study polar climate and meteorology, making important early observations and pioneering techniques like weather balloons.

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    Alfred Wegener was a German polar researcher and geophysicist born in 1880 who is most remembered for originating the theory of continental drift in 1912, hypothesizing that the continents slowly drift across the Earth's surface. His hypothesis was controversial and not widely accepted until the 1950s when evidence like paleomagnetism supported continental drift and plate tectonics. Wegener participated in four expeditions to Greenland between 1906-1913 to study polar climate and meteorology, making important early observations and pioneering techniques like weather balloons.

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    37 views4 pages

    Alfred Lothar Wegener (

    Uploaded by

    Leo
    Alfred Wegener was a German polar researcher and geophysicist born in 1880 who is most remembered for originating the theory of continental drift in 1912, hypothesizing that the continents slowly drift across the Earth's surface. His hypothesis was controversial and not widely accepted until the 1950s when evidence like paleomagnetism supported continental drift and plate tectonics. Wegener participated in four expeditions to Greenland between 1906-1913 to study polar climate and meteorology, making important early observations and pioneering techniques like weather balloons.

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    Alfred Lothar Wegener (/ˈveɪɡənər/;[1] German: [ˈʔalfʁeːt ˈveːgənɐ];[2][3] 1 November

    1880 – November 1930) was a German polar researcher, geophysicist and meteorologist.
    Alfred Wegener

    Wegener, circa 1924–1930

    Born 1 November 1880

    Berlin, German Empire

    Died November 1930 (aged 50)

    Greenland

    Residence Germany

    Nationality German

    Citizenship German

    Alma mater University of Berlin (Ph.D.)

    Known for Continental drift theory


    Scientific career

    Fields Meteorology, Geology, Astronomy

    Doctoral Julius Bauschinger


    advisor

    Influenced Johannes Letzmann

    Signature

    During his lifetime he was primarily known for his achievements in meteorology and as a
    pioneer of polar research, but today he is most remembered as the originator of the theory
    of continental drift by hypothesizing in 1912 that the continents are slowly drifting around
    the Earth (German: Kontinentalverschiebung). His hypothesis was controversial and not
    widely accepted until the 1950s, when numerous discoveries such
    as palaeomagnetism provided strong support for continental drift, and thereby a
    substantial basis for today's model of plate tectonics.[4][5] Wegener was involved in several
    expeditions to Greenland to study polar air circulation before the existence of the jet
    stream was accepted. Expedition participants made many meteorological observations and
    were the first to overwinter on the inland Greenland ice sheet and the first to bore ice
    cores on a moving Arctic glacier.

    Contents

    Biography

    This section needs additional citations for verification.

    Early life and education


    Alfred Wegener was born in Berlin on 1 November 1880 as the youngest of five children in
    a clergyman's family. His father, Richard Wegener, was a theologian and teacher of classical
    languages at the Berlinisches Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster. In 1886 his family
    purchased a former manor house near Rheinsberg, which they used as a vacation home.
    Today there is an Alfred Wegener Memorial site and tourist information office in a nearby
    building that was once the local schoolhouse.[6] He was cousin to film pioneer Paul
    Wegener.
    Commemorative plaque on Wegener's former school in Wallstrasse

    Wegener attended school at the Köllnisches Gymnasium on Wallstrasse in Berlin (a fact


    which is memorialized on a plaque on this protected building, now a school of music),
    graduating as the best in his class. Afterward he studied Physics, meteorology
    and Astronomy in Berlin, Heidelberg and Innsbruck. From 1902 to 1903 during his studies
    he was an assistant at the Urania astronomical observatory. He obtained a doctorate in
    astronomy in 1905 based on a dissertation written under the supervision of Julius
    Bauschinger at Friedrich Wilhelms University (today Humboldt University), Berlin. Wegener
    had always maintained a strong interest in the developing fields
    of meteorology and climatology and his studies afterwards focused on these disciplines.
    In 1905 Wegener became an assistant at the Aeronautisches Observatorium Lindenberg
    near Beeskow. He worked there with his brother Kurt, two years his senior, who was
    likewise a scientist with an interest in meteorology and polar research. The two pioneered
    the use of weather balloons to track air masses. On a balloon ascent undertaken to carry
    out meteorological investigations and to test a celestial navigation method using a
    particular type of quadrant (“Libellenquadrant”), the Wegener brothers set a new record
    for a continuous balloon flight, remaining aloft 52.5 hours from April 5–7, 1906.[7]
    First Greenland expedition and years in Marburg
    In that same year 1906, Wegener participated in the first of his four Greenland expeditions,
    later regarding this experience as marking a decisive turning point in his life. The Denmark
    expedition was led by the Dane Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen and charged with studying the last
    unknown portion of the northeastern coast of Greenland. During the expedition Wegener
    constructed the first meteorological station in Greenland near Danmarkshavn, where he
    launched kites and tethered balloons to make meteorological measurements in
    an Arctic climatic zone. Here Wegener also made his first acquaintance with death in a
    wilderness of ice when the expedition leader and two of his colleagues died on an
    exploratory trip undertaken with sled dogs.
    After his return in 1908 and until World War I, Wegener was a lecturer in meteorology,
    applied astronomy and cosmic physics at the University of Marburg. His students and
    colleagues in Marburg particularly valued his ability to clearly and understandably explain
    even complex topics and current research findings without sacrificing precision. His
    lectures formed the basis of what was to become a standard textbook in meteorology, first
    written In 1909/1910: Thermodynamik der Atmosphäre (Thermodynamics of the
    Atmosphere), in which he incorporated many of the results of the Greenland expedition.
    On 6 January 1912 he publicized his first thoughts about continental drift in a lecture at a
    session of the Geologischen Vereinigung at the Senckenberg Museum, Frankfurt am
    Main and in three articles in the journal Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen.[8]
    Second Greenland expedition
    After a stopover in Iceland to purchase and test ponies as pack animals, the expedition
    arrived in Danmarkshavn. Even before the trip to the inland ice began the expedition was
    almost annihilated by a calving glacier. The Danish expedition leader, Johan Peter Koch,
    broke his leg when he fell into a glacier crevasse and spent months recovering in a sickbed.
    Wegener and Koch were the first to winter on the inland ice in northeast
    Greenland.[9] Inside their hut they drilled to a depth of 25 m with an auger. In summer
    1913 the team crossed the inland ice, the four expedition participants covering a distance
    twice as long as Fridtjof Nansen's southern Greenland crossing in 1888. Only a few
    kilometers from the western Greenland settlement of Kangersuatsiaq the small team ran
    out of food while struggling to find their way through difficult glacial breakup terrain. But
    at the last moment, after the last pony and dog had been eaten, they were picked up at
    a fjord by the clergyman of Upernavik, who just happened to be visiting a remote
    congregation at the time.

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