Tectonic Plates

"When Wegener first put forward the idea in 1912 people thought he was nuts. His big problem was that he knew the continents had drifted but he couldn't explain how they drifted. The old (AND VERY WRONG!!) theory before this time was the 'Contraction theory' which suggested that the planet was once a molten ball and in the process of cooling the surface cracked and folded up on itself. The big problem with this idea was that all mountain ranges should be approximately the same age, and this was known not to be true. Wegener's explanation was that as the continents moved, the leading edge of the continent would encounter resistance and thus compress and fold upwards forming mountains near the leading edges of the drifting continents. Wegener also suggested that India drifted northward into the Asia forming the Himalayas and of course Mount Everest."