GEOLOGIST

Alfred Wegener

1880 - 1930

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Alfred Lothar Wegener (; German: [ˈʔalfʁeːt ˈveːɡənɐ]; 1 November 1880 – November 1930) was a German climatologist, geologist, geophysicist, meteorologist, and polar researcher. During his lifetime he was primarily known for his achievements in meteorology and as a pioneer of polar research, but today he is most remembered as the originator of continental drift hypothesis by suggesting in 1912 that the continents are slowly drifting around the Earth (German: Kontinentalverschiebung). His hypothesis was not accepted by mainstream geology until the 1950s, when numerous discoveries such as palaeomagnetism provided strong support for continental drift, and thereby a substantial basis for today's model of plate tectonics. Wegener was involved in several expeditions to Greenland to study polar air circulation before the existence of the jet stream was accepted. Read more on Wikipedia

His biography is available in different languages on Wikipedia. Alfred Wegener is the 2nd most popular geologist (down from 1st in 2019), the 151st most popular biography from Germany (down from 109th in 2019) and the most popular German Geologist.

Alfred Wegener is most famous for his theory of continental drift.

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Among GEOLOGISTS

Among geologists, Alfred Wegener ranks 2 out of 90. Before him are Charles Francis Richter. After him are Nicolas Steno, Milutin Milanković, Inge Lehmann, Charles Lyell, Friedrich Mohs, James Hutton, Mary Anning, Eduard Suess, Andrija Mohorovičić, and Francis Beaufort.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1880, Alfred Wegener ranks 4. Before him are George Marshall, Helen Keller, and Guillaume Apollinaire. After him are Douglas MacArthur, Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, Fedor von Bock, John Boyd Orr, Robert Musil, Oswald Spengler, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, and Franz Marc. Among people deceased in 1930, Alfred Wegener ranks 5. Before him are Arthur Conan Doyle, D. H. Lawrence, Fridtjof Nansen, and Ilya Repin. After him are Mary Harris Jones, Zewditu, Allvar Gullstrand, Fritz Pregl, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Christiaan Eijkman, and William Howard Taft.

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In Germany

Among people born in Germany, Alfred Wegener ranks 151 out of 7,253. Before him are Walter Benjamin (1892), Augustus II the Strong (1670), Eduard Buchner (1860), Leni Riefenstahl (1902), Frederick William IV of Prussia (1795), and Friedrich Fröbel (1782). After him are Friedrich Merz (1955), Friedrich Wöhler (1800), Theodor W. Adorno (1903), Carl Wilhelm Scheele (1742), Hans Adolf Krebs (1900), and Friedrich Hölderlin (1770).

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Among GEOLOGISTS In Germany

Among geologists born in Germany, Alfred Wegener ranks 1. After him are Friedrich Mohs (1773), Beno Gutenberg (1889), Christian Leopold von Buch (1774), Georg Amadeus Carl Friedrich Naumann (1797), Ferdinand Zirkel (1838), Harry Rosenbusch (1836), Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald (1902), Julius von Haast (1822), Ferdinand von Hochstetter (1829), Oskar Lenz (1848), and Rudolf Geiger (1894).

German born Geologists

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