BIOGRAPHY
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| Wegner children (Alfred in the middle) |
Alfred Lothar Wegener was born on November 1st, 1880, in German's capital city, Berlin.
Richard and Anna Wegener were the parents of a quite well-off financally family. He was a pastor and a classical languages teacher and she was a housewife. Alfred was the youngest of the five children.
When Alfred was six, his family bought a vacation manor near Rheinsberg, which is now a memorial site and a tourist information office.
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| Köllnisches Gymnasium |
Alfred was an inteligent boy.
He recieved a conventional education, attending at the Köllnisches Gymnasium in Berlin, graduating as the best of his class. His academic ability at school marked him clearly for a university eduaction.
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| Alfred in his university years |
In 1899 he began the university in Berlin, Heidelberg and Innsbruck, aged 18, taking a variety of science classes, before he specialized in physics, meteorology and astronomy. During his studies he worked as an assistant at the Urania Astronomical Observatory.
He obtained his doctorate in astronomy in 1905, at the age of 24. Wegener had always been interested in the fields of meteorology and climatology, so although he was intellectually prepared to be a professional astronomer, he decided to abandon it, because he tought he might not discover anything interesting or new. He believed he could make a greater contribution studying weather and climate.
When he finished his degree, Wegener became an assistant at the Aeronutisches Observatorium Linderberg, near Beeskow. There, he worked wiht Kurt, his brother (who was two years older than him). They used weather balloons to track air masses, and, in April 5-7 (1906), they set a new record, beeing in a continuous balloon flight, during 52.2 hours.
After working in Beeskow, Wegner participated in several expeditions:
The 1st Greenland expedition (1906) was lead by Dane Ludving Mylius-Erichsen and it was in order to study the last unknown portion of the northeastern coast of Greenland. There, Wegener constructed a meteorological station (which was the first one ever build in this zone) were they were going to launch kites and tethered ballons to make meteorogical measurements in the Artic climatic zone.
In 1908, after his return, he started to give lessons at the University of Marburg, about meteorology, cosmic phisics and applied astronomy.
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| Alfred Wegner and Else Köppen (Marburg, 1913) |
In the 2nd Greenland expedition, the team run out of food only a few kilometers of the settlement, and they weren't rescued until the have eaten the last dog and poni of the expedition.
Later, in 1913, Wegener married Else Köppen, and they lived together in Marburg, where he resumed his university lectureship.
In 1914 when the 1st World War started, Wegener was called and he was assigned to the army weather service.
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| Snowmobile |
Wegener obtained a position as a meteorologist at the German Naval Observatory, and with his wife and his two daughters he moved to Hamburg. He was appointed senior lecturer at the new University of Hamburg.
Wegener worked with Milutin Milankovic, reconstructing the climate of past eras. Then, in 1929 he embarked on his third trip to Greenland where they used a driven snowmobile.
In his fourth and last expedition to Greenland, Wegner had been trying to resupply a remote camp in a very bad weather (-60ºC / -76ºF). He did it successfully, but there wasn't enough food in the camp, so Wegner and Villumsen (a colleague) took dog sleds to travel to another camp.
Wegner died on the journey, probably of a heart attack. Villumsen buried his body in the snow and marked the grave with a pair of skis. Villumsen resumed his journey, but did not complete it.
Six months later, Wegner's body was found and reburied at the same point. The grave was marked with a large cross. Villumsen body was never found.
ALFRED WEGENER IS KNOWN FOR DEVELOPING THE TEORY OF THE CONTINENTAL DRIFT
(read the next entrie for more)
