Wikibooks: Planet Earth/6b. Plate Tectonics: You are a Crazy Man, Alfred Wegener

• Format: Book
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arctic; Greenland; Ice Sheet
• Online Access: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Planet_Earth/6b._Plate_Tectonics:_You_are_a_Crazy_Man,_Alfred_Wegener

Nav = Alfred Wegener and Plate Tectonics = It was a great surprise when Alfred Wegener appeared at the mid ice station in the center of the vast snowy landscape in the frozen heart of Greenland. His dog sled pulled through the Arctic cold near the onset of winter on October 19 1930 carrying supplies that would allow the 3 person crew to remain through the winter at the weather station. Their mission had been to record the year round weather on the great ice sheet but supplies had dwindled during the summer and the arrival of fresh supplies was delayed until late fall. They were going to have to abandon the weather station but the arrival of Alfred Wegener and his younger assistant Rasmus Villumsen changed their plans. The two travelers suffered through the bitter cold which reached lows of −60 °C (−76 °F) to arrive at the weather station and they were only protected by thick furs and parkas. Rasmus had lost his toes to frost bite on the journey and they looked to the 3 person crew at the station as if on death’s solemn door. They had only brought enough food and fuel to feed and keep warm the 3 person crew with the hopes of returning back to their main camp. But the weather had become colder and colder as winter was setting in. Originally they had carried more supplies but at the risk of losing men only Wegener and his assistant pushed onward with the bare minimum of supplies to staff the 3 person weather station for the winter. If Wegener refused to make the journey there would not be enough food for the crew stationed at the isolated outpost on the ice sheet and they would starve so he and Rasmus Villumsen drove their dog sled onward across the ice and snow into the center of Greenland. After arriving at the station and emptying their supplies for the grateful crew the two solemn men disappeared across the ice cover world. Fifteen years before a much younger Alfred Wegener taught physics meteorology and applied astronomy at the in Germany a small town dominated by the Marburger Schloss an 11th century ...