What scientist purposed the theory of continental drift?

Alfred Wegener proposed the theory of continental drift. The German meteorologist and geophysicist argued that Earth's continents were once joined and had gradually moved apart.

Wegener presented his hypothesis to the German Geological Society on January 6, 1912, and developed it in his 1915 book The Origin of Continents and Oceans. He pointed to the jigsaw-like fit of continental shelves, matching fossils, similar rock formations, and evidence of ancient climates on continents now far apart. He called the former supercontinent Pangaea.

Many geologists initially rejected the idea because Wegener could not provide a convincing mechanism capable of moving continents. Later discoveries of seafloor spreading, paleomagnetism, and plate boundaries supplied the missing evidence. Modern plate tectonics incorporates continental drift, although it explains movement through moving lithospheric plates rather than continents sliding independently across the ocean floor.