By Atiq Raja
The face of our planet has not always looked the way it does today. The continents that now seem immovable and distant were once parts of a single, massive supercontinent — a landmass that slowly broke apart and drifted across the surface of the Earth over millions of years. This fascinating process is known as continental drift, one of the most transformative ideas in the history of Earth science. The theory of continental drift was first proposed in 1912 by Alfred Wegener, a German meteorologist and geophysicist. At a time when most scientists believed that continents were fixed, Wegener made a daring suggestion: that they had once been joined together and had since drifted apart.
The German meteorologist named the original supercontinent Pangaea, meaning “all Earth,” which existed around 250 million years ago. According to Wegener, Pangaea began to split into two large landmasses — Laurasia in the north and Gondwana in the south — which further broke apart into the continents we recognize today. Though Wegener didn’t have the technology to explain how the continents moved, his theory was supported by several striking pieces of evidence. If you look closely at a world map, the east coast of South America and the west coast of Africa appear to fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle; this was one of the first clues that continents might once have been connected.
Further support came from fossil evidence, with similar remains of plants and animals discovered on continents now separated by vast oceans. For example, fossils of the freshwater reptile Mesosaurus were found in both South America and Africa, strongly suggesting these lands were once joined. The patterns of rock formations and mountain ranges told a similar story. Identical geological structures were found on different continents, such as the Appalachian Mountains in North America, which line up perfectly with the Caledonian Mountains in Scotland and Scandinavia, indicating they were once part of the same range. Wegener also pointed to paleoclimatic evidence, including signs of ancient climates that didn’t match a continent’s current location, like evidence of glaciation in India and Africa — regions now far from any polar ice caps.
Despite the convincing evidence, Wegener’s theory faced harsh criticism. The biggest question was what force could possibly move entire continents. Wegener could not provide a mechanism strong enough to explain it, so his idea remained controversial until the mid-20th century. In the 1960s, new discoveries in seafloor spreading and plate tectonics finally gave Wegener’s theory the support it needed. Scientists found that the Earth’s outer shell — the lithosphere — is broken into large pieces called tectonic plates, which float on the semi-fluid layer beneath them, the asthenosphere. The movement of these plates, driven by heat and convection currents from the Earth’s interior, explained continental drift perfectly. We can see this process in action today.
The Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a long underwater mountain range, is pushing the Americas away from Europe and Africa, causing the Atlantic Ocean to widen by about two to five centimeters each year. The mighty Himalayas continue to rise because the Indian Plate is still colliding with the Eurasian Plate, a process that began around 50 million years ago. In eastern Africa, the continent is slowly tearing itself apart along the East African Rift, a process that may eventually form a new ocean, separating East Africa from the rest of the continent. And in California, the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate slide past each other along the San Andreas Fault, causing frequent earthquakes as a living example of plate motion.
What began as a bold, almost unbelievable theory has now become one of the foundations of modern geology. Continental drift not only explains the shape and position of the continents but also gives insight into earthquakes, volcanoes and mountain formation. Alfred Wegener may not have lived to see his idea fully accepted — he died in 1930 — but his vision reshaped how humanity understands the Earth. His theory turned the planet from a static sphere into a dynamic, ever-changing world, alive with motion and transformation. In essence, continental drift reminds us that even the ground beneath our feet is not still — it is constantly moving, evolving and reshaping the face of the Earth. The continents are travelers in a grand geological journey that continues to this very day.
(The writer is a rights activist and CEO of AR Trainings and Consultancy, with degrees in Political Science and English Literature, can be reached at news@metro-morning.com)
