Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 207.190.197.242 (talk) at 21:29, 4 December 2006 (→Continental drift). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Alfred Lothar Wegener (Berlin, November 1, 1880 – Greenland, November 2 or 3, 1930) was a German interdisciplinary scientist and meteorologist, who became famous for his theory of continental drift.

Career

Wegener had early training in astronomy (Ph.D., University of Berlin, 1904). He became interested in the new discipline of meteorology (he married the daughter of famous meteorologist and climatologist Wladimir Köppen) and as a record-holding balloonist himself, pioneered the use of weather balloons to track air masses. His lectures became a standard textbook in meteorology, The Thermodynamics of the Atmosphere. Wegener was part of several expeditions to Greenland to study polar air circulation, when the existence of a jet stream itself was highly controversial. He died there of hypothermia.

"Science is a social process. It happens on a time scale longer than a human life. If I die, someone takes my place. You die; someone takes your place. What's important is to get it done." -- Alfred Lothar Wegener, shortly before his death at age 50.

Continental drift

YOU SUCK

Awards and honors

The Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany, established in 1980, honours his name. The Wegener impact craters on both Mars and the Moon, as well as the asteroid 29227 Wegener, are named after him.

See also

• continental drift
• Gondwana
• land bridge
• Laurasia
• Pangaea
• plate tectonics
• seafloor spreading
• supercontinent

External links

• Alfred Wegener biography
• USGS biography
• Wegener biography at Pangaea.org
• Wegener Institute website (English)

Template:Persondata

Template:Link FA Template:Link FA

• 1880 births
• 1930 deaths
• Meteorologists
• German geologists
• Plate tectonics