Continental Drift Continental drift is the theory that the positions of the earth's continents have changed a lot through geologic time. The German meteorologist Alfred Wegener proposed the first comprehensive theory of continental drift in 1912, on the basis of the way the continents fit together on the opposing Atlantic coasts and paleontology correlation on both sides of the Atlantic. He proposed the theory that about 200 million years ago there was one great big continent, or supercontinent, called Pangaea. Pangaea split into two big landmasses, Laurasia and Gondwanaland. The present continents separated in the next geologic era,