Alfred Wegener Alfred Lothar Wegener 1 November 1880 2 November 1930 adalah seorang ahli meteorologi dan geofisika Jerma

Alfred Lothar Wegener (1 November 1880 – 2 November 1930) adalah seorang ahli meteorologi dan geofisika Jerman. Dia mengembangkan teori pergeseran benua dan merumuskan gagasan tentang Pangea. Awalnya, sebagian besar idenya diabaikan. Tetapi belakangan ini, gagasan Wegener diterima oleh komunitas ilmiah.

Alfred Wegener
Alfred Wegener pada tahun 1925
Lahir	(1880-11-01)1 November 1880 Berlin, Kekaisaran Jerman
Meninggal	2 November 1930(1930-11-02) (umur 50) Clarinetania, Greenland
Tempat tinggal	Jerman
Kebangsaan	Jerman
Warga negara	Jerman
Almamater	Universitas Berlin
Dikenal atas	Teori pergeseran benua
Karier ilmiah
Bidang	Meteorologi, Geologi, Astronomi
Pembimbing doktoral	Julius Bauschinger
Menginspirasi	Johannes Letzmann
Tanda tangan

Biografi Sunting

Alfred Lothar Wegener lahir pada 1 November 1880 di Berlin, Kekaisaran Jerman. Ia anak paling kecil dari Richard Wegener. Ayahnya seorang guru, ahli bahasa, ahli teologi, dan pengelola sebuah panti asuhan. Sejak usia dini, ia menaruh minat akan Greenland. Alfred senang berjalan kaki, mendaki gunung, dan berlayar. Hobinya ini seakan-akan mempersiapkan dirinya untuk melakukan ekspedisi ke Greenland.

Wegener menyampaikan gagasan pergeseran benua dalam bukunya berjudul The Origin of Continent and Oceans yang diterbitkan pada 1912. Namun, hingga dia meninggal pada 1930 teorinya belum diterima oleh para ilmuwan.

Karier Sunting

Wegener mendapati bahwa timur Amerika Selatan cocok jika dihubungkan dengan barat Afrika, memberi petunjuk bahwa semua benua dahulu pernah bersatu. Wegener mencari bebatuan dan fosil di dua sisi benua yang berbatasan dengan Samudra Atlantik untuk membuktikan hipotesisnya. Dia berhasil menemukan bukti-bukti tersebut tetapi tidak dapat menjelaskan mekanisme pergerakan benua dan gagasannya ditentang oleh organisasi seperti American Petroleum Society.

Peta awal yang dibuat Alfred Wegener menggambarkan Pangea dan benua lain bergeser.

Pada 1924-1930, Wegener mengajar meteorologi dan geofisika di University of Graz di Austria. Pada 1927, ia memperkenalkan Pangaea, sebuah istilah Yunani yang berarti "semua negeri," untuk menggambarkan superbenua yang ada di bumi jutaan tahun yang lalu. Pada tahun 1930, Wegener ikut dalam ekspedisi terakhir ke Greenland. Cuaca buruk menggangu perjalanan Wegener. Dia meninggal dunia pada November 1930.

Pada tahun 1960-an, ditemukan bahwa magma berada di sepanjang garis lempeng tektonik, menandakan dasar laut bergeser seperti yang diperkirakan Wegener.

The Alfred Wegener Institute Sunting

The Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research didirikan di Jerman pada tahun 1980 untuk mengingat kontribusi Alfred Wegener terutama di bidang sains dan jelajah Kutub. Misi dari institusi ini adalah untuk melakukan riset terhadap interaksi antara es, atmosfer, dan lautan; ekosistem di Kutub Utara dan Kutub Selatan; serta evolusi benua dan lautan Kutub. Salah satu fokus utama risetnya saat ini adalah perubahan iklim global.

Rujukan Sunting

^ M.A., Evans, Stephen, (2010, ©2009). Back to school for grown-ups : everything you should have learned in class. Hauppauge, N.Y.: Barron's. ISBN 0764162713. OCLC 435423436.
U.S. Geological Survey. "Historical perspective". pubs.usgs.gov. Diakses tanggal 27 Desember 2020.
Twigger 2014, hlm. 25, "Alfred Wegener, a German explorer and scientist, was disbelieved and ridiculed for his continental-drift theory – the theory, put forward in 1912, that the world was fissured, like an infant’s skull, and yet that these fissures were actually fruitful, fructifying with molten magma deep under the sea, expanding, sliding over each other. Wegener was ignored from his untimely death in Greenland in 1930 untul the 1950s, a warning shot to those who would propose a theory that looks right but can’t be easily explained."
Twigger 2014, hlm. 25-16, "Wegener, from an early age, noticed what every schoolchild notices: South America fits into the right angle of west Africa; in fact the land mass of earth all looks as if it was once joined. Wegener searched for evidence of his theory – finding rocks and fossils that matched on either side of the Atlantic Ocean. He provided the evidence but no mechanism and was opposed heatedly by such august organisations as the American Petroleum Society."
"Alfred Wegener | Biography, Theory, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica (dalam bahasa Inggris). Diakses tanggal 27 Desember 2020.
Twigger 2014, hlm. 26, "The discovery in the 1960s that the sea floor really did spread as Wegener had speculated, with magma bubbling up along tectonic plate lines, finally brought respectability to a theory that had been derided and lampooned. Scientists agreed that circulating hot liquid centre of the earth was how the plates, with the continents sitting on top of them, moved. Just as rice in a pan of boiling water will circulate, so the surface of the earth was in constant movement, shoved by the circulating movement of the magma below."

Daftar pustaka Sunting

Twigger, Robert (2014). Red Nile : A Biography of the World's Greatest River (edisi ke-satu AS). New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-1-250-05233-9. OCLC 883962326.

Pranala luar Sunting

(Inggris) Biografi Alfred Wegener di Pangaea.org

[:0-1] M.A., Evans, Stephen, (2010, ©2009). Back to school for grown-ups : everything you should have learned in class. Hauppauge, N.Y.: Barron's. ISBN 0764162713. OCLC 435423436.

[2] U.S. Geological Survey. "Historical perspective". pubs.usgs.gov. Diakses tanggal 27 Desember 2020.

[FOOTNOTETwigger201425-3] Twigger 2014, hlm. 25, "Alfred Wegener, a German explorer and scientist, was disbelieved and ridiculed for his continental-drift theory – the theory, put forward in 1912, that the world was fissured, like an infant’s skull, and yet that these fissures were actually fruitful, fructifying with molten magma deep under the sea, expanding, sliding over each other. Wegener was ignored from his untimely death in Greenland in 1930 untul the 1950s, a warning shot to those who would propose a theory that looks right but can’t be easily explained."

[FOOTNOTETwigger201425-16-4] Twigger 2014, hlm. 25-16, "Wegener, from an early age, noticed what every schoolchild notices: South America fits into the right angle of west Africa; in fact the land mass of earth all looks as if it was once joined. Wegener searched for evidence of his theory – finding rocks and fossils that matched on either side of the Atlantic Ocean. He provided the evidence but no mechanism and was opposed heatedly by such august organisations as the American Petroleum Society."

[5] "Alfred Wegener | Biography, Theory, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica (dalam bahasa Inggris). Diakses tanggal 27 Desember 2020.

[FOOTNOTETwigger201426-6] Twigger 2014, hlm. 26, "The discovery in the 1960s that the sea floor really did spread as Wegener had speculated, with magma bubbling up along tectonic plate lines, finally brought respectability to a theory that had been derided and lampooned. Scientists agreed that circulating hot liquid centre of the earth was how the plates, with the continents sitting on top of them, moved. Just as rice in a pan of boiling water will circulate, so the surface of the earth was in constant movement, shoved by the circulating movement of the magma below."