is currently called Pangea (from the Greek meaning "all land")--extended from pole to pole (7:8-17). However, the supercontinent eventually broke apart, and--throughout the Mesozoic and Cenozoic--its component fragments drifted across the globe to form the planet's modern continents and oceans (6:516).
The origins of plate tectonic theory can be traced back to many different investigators. For instance, in 1596, the cartographer Abraham Ortelius suggested that the Earth's continents might once have been joined together (3:110). Similarly, in 1620, Francis Bacon remarked on "the parallelism of the facing shores of the Atlantic (6:498-500)." In the late 19th century, the French investigator, Antonio Snider-Pellegrini, even published maps depicting continental drift. Austrian geologist, Eduard Suess, actually put some of the pieces together, and suggested the former existence of a single giant landmass comprised of the present-day southern continents (i.e., Gondwanaland).
Of the different early hypotheses, however, the one that truly stands out as the ancestor of plate tectonic theory was proposed by Alfred Wegener during the early 20th century. Born in Berlin in 1800, Wegener was the son of an evangelical minister. He studied at the universities in Heidelberg, Innsbruck, and Berlin, and eventually took a doctorate in astronomy. In addition to meteorology though, Wegener was also interested in exploring Greenland. The scientist died in 1930, at the age of 50, on his third expedition to the continent. It is generally believed that Wegener suffered a heart attack brought on by overexertion (7:8-17).
Between 1910 and 1912, Alfred Wegener and F. B. Taylor formulated the theory of continental drift. According to the hypothesis, the substratum underlying the continents acts as a highly viscous fluid. Moreover, when provided with a sufficiently powerful motive force, the Earth's landmasses are able to move horizon...