Wegener Hypothesis Research Articles

The critical extent of polar ice‐caps

This is a brief review of our present knowledge concerning one aspect of climatic control. The subject is of importance in connection with certain phases of geology such as glaciation and the Wegener hypothesis. According to this hypothesis the continents at various times have drifted apart in an east‐west direction and have also experienced large movements from south to north and from north to south again. This latter feature of Wegener's theory is supported by climatological evidence, and loses its only support if other means of securing large variations in climate are found.

An Early Reference to Continental Separation

THOSE geologists who are interested in the Wegener hypothesis of the shifting of continents and the literature of the subject may like to know that while reading an old book entitled “Eclipses, Past and Present”, by the Rev. S. J. Johnson (James Parker and Co., 1874), I was rather surprised to find the following remarks: “If we study our earth carefully, we shall see that everywhere it bears marks of having undergone a fearful catastrophe. Fossil substances, which originally belonged to the sea, have been found on the heights of mountains; the bones of animals have been discovered in countries the most remote from those they inhabit. Again, if we look at our maps, we shall see the parts of one continent that jut out, agree with the indented portions of another. The prominent coast of Africa would fit in the opposite opening between North and South America, and so in numerous other instances. A general rending asunder of the world would seem to have taken place.”

Societies and Academies

LONDON. Geological Society, April 21.—L. R. Cox: Anthra-copupa britannica sp. nov., a land gastropod from the Keele beds of Northern Worcestershire. The occurrence is recorded, for the first time, of a pulmonate gastropod in British Carboniferous rocks. The specimens were collected by Mr. W. Wickham King in 1924 from a grey calcareous claystone, interstratified with the vermilion marls of the lower part of the Keele beds, on the northern slope of Clent Hill. One species is a land shell, referable to the family Pupillidæ it is very close to Anthracopupa vermilionensis (Bradley), from the Coal Measures of Illinois, but is slightly stouter, and differs in detail.—H. P. Lewis: On a rock-building bryozoan with phosphatised skeleton from the basal Arenig rocks of Ffestiniog (North Wales). The black, usually ovoid masses in the basal Arenig rocks (Garth Grit) on both sides of the Harlech Dome, have been designated ‘ lumps,’ ‘ pebbles,’ and ‘ nodules.’ On the evidence of etched surfaces and microscope-sections, the structure of these masses is found to be originally organic, but modified later by inorganic processes. A new genus of the Ceramoporidas of Ulrich is described. It is represented by one species—the earliest bryozoan known in British rocks. It was responsible for the building-up of the nodular masses, which contain a large amount of calcium phosphate.—C. A. Matley: The geology of the Cayman Islands (British West Indies), and their relation to the Bartlett Trough. With an appendix on the species of Lepidocyclina and Carpenteria from Cayman Brae and their geological significance, by T. W. Vaughan. The Cayman Islands are an isolated group of three islands, with an area of 100 square miles, all very similar in their geological structure and history, although each is a separate faulted block. The islands are built entirely of calcareous rocks free from terrigenous materials other than fine dust. There are two formations present, an older Bluff Limestone, and a newer, Ironshore Formation, lying unconformably upon the former, which makes a coastal terrace with a maximum height of 12 to 15 feet above the sea. The Bluff Limestone, a white, massive, semicrystalline limestone, containing casts of mollusca, badly preserved corals, nullipores, and foraminifera, resembles lithologically many parts of the White Limestone of Jamaica. Cayman Brae is Middle Oligocene, while Little Cayman and Grand Cayman seem to be of Miocene age, not newer than Lower Miocene. On the coastal shelf formed round each island by marine erosion the Calcareous Ironshore Formation, with its mollusca and corals of living species, was deposited. Its emergence, in Pleistocene or recent times, as a low platform backed by the ancient cliffs, is probably the result of a fall of sea-level. The almost completely submerged Cayman Ridge on which the islands stand, and the Bartlett Trough which flanks it on the south, are examined in the light of the Wegener hypothesis. The Ridge may once have lain near the Jamaica-Honduras Ridge, with Jamaica itself confronting the Sierra Maestra of Cuba; further, the separation has taken place by the development of a great crustal fissure (initiated probably in Pliocene, or at the earliest in Middle Miocene, times) which has become the Bartlett Trough.

Wegener's Hypothesis and the Distribution of Micro-Lepidoptera

ON the suggestion of a friend, I have tested the credibility of Wegener's hypothesis of continental displacement in the light of my knowledge of the geographical distribution of the micro-Lepidoptera, and some observations on the subject may be of general interest.

Three Short Papers on Isostasy

The question of the supposed isostatic adjustment of the earth's crust to increase or decrease of load has recently come prominently to the fore in connexion with the Wegener hypothesis and Joly's theory of geological transgression and revolution. The principle itself is fairly well established by several independent lines of evidence, but there is room for clearer thinking as to the mechanism attending its operation. Very varied opinions are for instance held as to therapidity and completeness of the adjustment, and unjustifiable assumptions are made with regard to the displacement of magma beneath depressed areas. It is very necessary to keep an open mind on these questions and to search the available evidence for means of defining the nature of the attendant sub-crustal movements.

Permo-Carboniferous Glaciation and the Wegener Hypothesis

IN a recent number of NATURE (February 21, p. 255) there is a very interesting review by Prof. J. W. Gregory of an English edition of “The Origin of Continents and Oceans”, in which important objections are brought forward against the supposed drift of continents and shifting of the earth's poles. The suggestion is made, however, that the theory will “probably give a new lease of life to the explanation of the Carboniferous glaciation of India and some parts of the Southern Hemisphere, by the shifting of the Pole; for arguments, which are unanswerable against that explanation with scattered continents, do not apply to Prof. Wegener's single continent”.

Botanical Aspects of Wegener's Hypothesis

Botanical Aspects of Wegener's Hypothesis

Botanical Aspects of Wegener's Hypothesis

IN the account which appeared in NATURE of January 27, p. 131, of the discussion on the distribution of life in the southern hemisphere, which took place before the Royal Society of South Africa, I am said to regard the botanical evidence as completely opposed to Wegener's theory. The remainder of the article generally followed the official report issued by the society.

The Life-Cycle of the Eel in Relation to Wegener's Hypothesis

THE argument in Dr. Wemyss Fulton's very interesting letter in NATURE of March 17, p. 359, must be divided into two parts. First, it is pointed out that the gradual recession of the east and west coast-lines of the North Atlantic Ocean from one another would explain in a very satisfactory manner the evolution of the amazing migrations of the larval eel. Secondly, it is assumed that Wegener's continental drift is the only method of effecting that gradual recession. It is possible to concur heartily with the first thesis, without admitting the second.

The Zwartebergen and the Wegener Hypothesis

CRITICS of the Wegener hypothesis have made a good deal of capital out of the northward deflexion of the folds of the Zwartebergen on approaching the west coast of Africa, but their failure to point out the cause of this deflexion seems to me to lay them open to the charge of advocacy which they so freely lay at Wegener's feet.

The Wegener Hypothesis and the Great Pyramid

IN the discussions on the Wegener hypothesis I have not yet seen an allusion to the direct evidence given by Flinders Petrie (“Pyramids and Temples of Gizeh,” second edition, 1885, pp. 11 and 41) of a change in azimuth at Gizeh amounting to four or five minutes since the erection of the Great Pyramid.

The Life-Cycle of the Eel in Relation to Wegener's Hypothesis

IN NATURE of January 27, p. 131, under the title “The Distribution of Life in the Southern Hemisphere, and its Bearing on Wegener's Hypothesis,” an account is given of a discussion at a recent meeting of the Royal Society of South Africa on this question. Opinions were divided, the geologists suspending judgment, while the hypothesis was opposed on botanical and entomological grounds as being unnecessary. On the other hand, it was said that the most important zoological evidence in support of Wegener's theory was provided by the distribution of the isopod, Phreatoicus.

The Wegener Hypothesis of Continental Drift

THE chief value of the discussion on the Wegener hypothesis is that it has given rise to a reconsideration of the problems presented by the configuration and relations of the major features of the earth's surface.

The Wegener Hypothesis and the Great Pyramid

THE undoubted trend of the pyramids at 4600 B.C. was about 5 west of the present pole. Each of the data was probably set out afresh from polar observation, as that would be easier than transfer by measurement. The accuracy of work there to 12 of angle is in keeping with the accuracy of later work, as of granite planes 20 square feet in area with only inch/160 error at 3300 B.C., or of weights in eighth century A.D. with variations all within grain/200. The cause of a change of axis of about 5 per century might be due to ocean currents or to earth deformation.

Wegener's Hypothesis of Continental Drift

Wegener's Hypothesis of Continental Drift

The Wegener Hypothesis and the Origin of the Oceans

READERS of NATURE have been served with good reviews and discussions on the Wegener hypothesis, and it may therefore be of interest to point out that, so far as it relates to the origin of the Atlantic Ocean, this hypothesis was anticipated by previous writers, more especially by Osmond Fisher and W. H. Pickering. Fisher's views are well known to students of geo-dynamics, and Wegener himself refers to papers by W. H. Pickering and F. B. Taylor; but only by reading the accounts given by these authors can one realise how completely they forestalled Wegener, so far as the origin of the Atlantic by the westerly drift of the Americas is concerned.

Wegener's Hypothesis of Continental Drift

WEGENER'S hypothesis is based on the idea VV that the continental masses are patches of lighter rock floating and moving in a layer of denser rock, and this denser rock forms the floor of the oceans. Following, with a slight alteration, the terminology of Suess he calls the lighter material the Sial and the denser layer the Sima. Suess uses the words Sal and Sima, and thinks that the Sal covers the globe completely.

The Distribution of Life in the Southern Hemisphere, and its Bearing on Wegener's Hypothesis

ONE of the most important results of the acceptance of Wegener's theory of the palaeogeography of the world would be the simplification of the I facts of the Permo-Carboniferous glaciation of Australia, India, South Africa, and South America by bringing the glaciated areas together into one single glaciated region. It is undoubted that if this were done much of the difficulty of accounting for the simultaneous glaciation of regions so diverse in latitude would disappear. Considerable interest, therefore, attaches to the recent discussion on Wegener's hypothesis, which was held before the Royal Society of South Africa, for its bearing on this important aspect of the subject.

The Wegener Hypothesis

DISCUSSION AT THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION, HULL. ON Monday, September 11, the meeting room of the Geological Section of the British Association was the theatre of a lively but inconclusive discussion on the Wegener hypothesis of the origin of the continents. This hypothesis, which is a development of the well-established theory of isostasy, regards the continental masses as cakes of light siliceous material floating on a heavier basaltic, fluid or viscid, substratum, which in its turn reaches the surface in a solidified form on the floors of the oceans. The continents, which are thus movable, are supposed in Carboniferous times to have formed a single mass, and to have split up by rift-valley formation and started floating apart in late Cretaceous or early Tertiary times. The mountain ranges fringing the Pacific are supposed to have been produced along those margins of the continents which are or have been, in virtue of their motion, impinging on the hard oceanic crust, the belts of thick sedimentation along the continental shelves localising the folding.

Wegener's Displacement Theory

I QUITE agree with Mr. Lake's remarks (July 15, p. 77) as to the unsuitability of the tracing-paper method of investigating the merits of Wegener's hypothesis. All who wish to pursue the subject will do well to adopt his suggestions as to the practical method.