To oversimplify: there was not a demonstrable process that could explain the movement of huge sheets of solid rock, that’s where the reluctance came from. It wasn’t until the ocean floor mapping of the 60s that we understood the non-random nature earthquakes and the existence of mid-ocean ridges that lead the scientific community to accept “seafloor spreading” as the mechanism of Alfred Wegener’s proposed continental drift.
To oversimplify: there was not a demonstrable process that could explain the movement of huge sheets of solid rock, that’s where the reluctance came from. It wasn’t until the ocean floor mapping of the 60s that we understood the non-random nature earthquakes and the existence of mid-ocean ridges that lead the scientific community to accept “seafloor spreading” as the mechanism of Alfred Wegener’s proposed continental drift.
Still really random (to us), just a bit less now.
Wasn’t a substantial element mapping during WW2? That was when they discovered the patterns/changes in earth’s magnetic field over millenia.