Wegener proposed that the continents were like icebergs floating on heavier crust, but the only forces that he could invoke to propel continents around were poleflucht, the effect of Earth’s rotation pushing objects toward the equator, and the lunar and solar tidal forces, which tend to push objects toward the west. It was quickly shown that these forces were far too weak to …

Thus, despite significant differences in detail, Alfred Wegener was right in most of his major concepts. Plate tectonics also confirms the accuracy of many of his paleogeographic reconstructions. Ironically, though the lack of a credible driving force was the main objection to Wegener's theory, plate tectonics has been almost universally accepted despite the absence of …