Article ID: CBB540925176

Overrating the exactitude: the role of Geodesy in Alfred Wegener’s arguments for Continental Drift (2021)

unapi

Alfred Wegener argued that the best way to prove his conviction that continental drift was a reality was to measure displacements directly. Taking a series of historic longitude determinations, he concluded that Greenland was moving away from Norway at a rate that agreed with his assumption of the timing of separation. The confirmation that this offered was eventually found to be illusory however, and Wegener appears to have been tempted to gloss over what he knew were inherent flaws in the geodetic data on the basis of an unfortunate coincidental agreement between predicted and measured rates of displacement, both of which were found to be erroneous after Wegener’s death. Geodesy also offered Wegener a short cut to a confirmation of continental drift at a time when his other commitments precluded him from more time consuming investigations. Wegener’s use of geodetic data may ultimately have been misguided, though it did not unduly harm his overall case for continental drift.

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Authors & Contributors
Martin Schneider
Bento Cavadas
Daniele Musumeci
Maria de Lourdes Bacha
Chetty, Suryakanthie
Stefano Furlani
Concepts
Plate tectonics and continental drift
Geology
Earth sciences
Geodesy
Biographies
Geophysics
Time Periods
20th century, early
19th century
20th century
20th century, late
Places
Germany
Greenland
Greenwich (England)
South America
United States
Spain
Institutions
Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, Md.)
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