WEGENER'S MAPS OF CONTINENTAL DRIFT

The "great images of geology" I have chosen are the maps Alfred Wegener employed in 1922 in the 3rd edition of his book: Die Entstehung der Kontinente und Ozeane. (The Origin of Continents and Oceans), in order to illustrate the separation of the continents through geologic time.

The maps are the Hammer equal-area map of the whole earth projected on an ellipse, and the Lambert oblique orthographic equal-area map of both hemispheres. These appear on facing pages (18 and 19) as figures 4 and 5 in that book.

Each figure contains three maps: one for continental positions in the Carboniferous, one for the Eocene, and one for the early Quaternary.

Wegener chose these maps after much trial (and much error) to overcome the confusion (in supporters and opponents alike) caused by the distortions of continental shapes in the Mercator Projection, by far the most common "mental" image of the earth.

These are now among the most often reproduced historical images in earth science textbooks, and nearly as familiar to most school children as the Mercator map of the world they "argue against."