What arguments were used against Wegener's theory of continental drift?

Answer 1

• Alfred Wegener proposed the theory of continental drift. His evidence included the fit of the continents, similar fossils on different continents, glacier evidence in Australia, and the alignment of mountain ranges in America and England.
• The theory of plate tectonics followed the continental drift theory. Plate tectonics had the advantage of proposing a mechanism for the movements of the continents, and was accepted. The key piece of evidence was seafloor spreading, relating to magnetic striping near ocean ridges.
• Plate tectonics is the theory that Earth's crust consists of seven large plates and many smaller plates shifting around on Earth. The movement of these plates creates Earth's features, such as ridges, mountains and some of the volcanoes.
• Earth's mechanical layers are the lithosphere, asthenosphere, mesosphere and core. The hard lithosphere floats on top of the soft asthenosphere.
• Subduction occurs at convergent boundaries. Here, ocean crust is destroyed when it is pushed under continental crust. New crust is formed at divergent boundaries, such as ocean ridges. A transform boundary is where two plates slide past each other horizontally.
• It was originally thought that simple convection cells in the mantle caused the plate movement. Now it is thought that slab-pull is the dominant force. Other factors are slab-push and hot plumes.
• Pangaea was the super-continent that formed about 300 million years ago, and contained all of the continents. It broke up due to heat build-up. It is thought that several super-continents have existed in Earth's past.

Answer 2

Opponents of Wegener's theory of continental drift argued that there was no plausible mechanism to explain how continents could move across the Earth's surface. They also believed that Wegener lacked the necessary scientific evidence to support his theory, particularly in terms of the forces that could drive continental movement. Additionally, some geologists were skeptical of Wegener's interdisciplinary approach, which incorporated evidence from different fields such as geology, Paleontology, and paleoclimatology.