Alison Cowan

Wegners Theory and The Andes Mountain Formation

Alfred Wagner was the scientist who came up with the theory of continental drift in the
early 20
th
century. His hypothesis proposed that continents were once joined and over time
drifted apart. His ideas challenged scientists in geology, geophysics, zoogeography and
paleontology. Reactions from the different disciplines was so negative that serious
discussion of the concept stopped until the late 1940s. The reason why his theory was so
unaccepted was mainly because it was a huge threat to each of the authorities disciplines
because everything they had previously learnt would have to be dropped and then started
over if Wegners theory was proved right. And it was.

Wegner noticed that the continents seemed to fit together at the edge to their continental
shelves. Wegner examined the continents shorelines and experimented by trying to put the
shorelines together like a jig-saw puzzle.

Another source of evidence that Wegner used to prove his theory was that the continents in
the southern hemisphere display an identical pattern of rock and fossils known as the
"Gondwana sequence". The most logical explanation was that the continents were once
parts of a much larger "super-continent" which was named Pangaea.

One source of evidence was that of palaeomagnetism. Rocks that were formed at different
places on the Earth's surface have different magnetizations. Using this information, when
rock layers were uncovered with a magnetization that did not agree with its position on the
Earth, questions were raised. It was proposed that the Earth's magnetic poles wandered.

Before Wegner, it was thought that the mountains formed because the Earth was cooling
down, and in doing so contracted. This was believed to form wrinkles, or mountains, in the
Earth's crust. If the idea was correct, however, mountains would be spread evenly over the
Earth's surface, which is not the case.

The Andes Mountains are the longest and one of the highest mountain ranges in the world.
They are located in South America and stretch 4,500 miles from north to south, along the
west coast of the continent. The climate is not the same throughout the biome because
there are places nearer to the equator than others. The Andes are separated into three
natural regions: the southern, central, and northern regions. In the northern region, it is
hotter because it is closest to the equator. There are rain forests in this region, due to the
more humid, rainy climate. In the southern region, the mountains are nearer to the
Antarctic and it is much colder. It is not very populated in the southern area.
In the central region of this biome, the weather is milder because it is not near either the
equator or the cold Antarctic.

The largest herb in the world, Puya raimondii, grows in this region and can survive at high
elevations up to 13,000 feet. The herb can also live for 100 years. The Andes Mountains
supply many birds with homes like the Flamingo and the Hillstar Hummingbird. Types of
land animals include the Mountain Lion and Llamas to name a few. The range is also known
for its volcanoes, ruins of long-ago civilizations and the source of a malaria treatment. The
Andes were the home of one of the greatest civilization in the New World, the Inca Empire.
Alison Cowan


The Andean mountain system is the result of global plate-tectonic forces during the
Cenozoic Era (roughly the past 65 million years) that built upon earlier geologic activity.
About 250 million years ago the crustal plates constituting the Earths landmass were joined
together into the supercontinent Pangaea. The subsequent breakup of Pangaea and of its
southern portion, Gondwana, dispersed these plates outward, where they began to take the
form and position of the present-day continents. The convergence of two of these plates
the continental South American Plate and the oceanic Nazca Plategave rise to the
mountain-building activity that produced the Andes

Nazca plate moves slightly north of eastwards at a rate varying from approximately 80
mm/yr in the south to approximately 70 mm/yr in the north.

In 2000 years the Nazca plate would've moved about 16000cm or 160m. This means that
the South American plate will be forced up and therefore the mountain range will get
higher. With this in mind, the Nazca plate will continue to subduct. The heat and friction
caused by this movement will cause volcanoes to erupt and cause earthquakes.