Abyssal plains were not recognized as distinct physiographic features of the sea floor until the late 1940s and, until very recently, none had been studied on a systematic basis. They are poorly preserved in the sedimentary record, because they tend to be consumed by the subduction process.
The first man to discover that the earth moves around the sun was an Italian scientist named Galileo Galilei.
In 1910, a young German scientist named Alfred Wegener (vay guh nur) became curious about the relationship of the continents. He hypothesized that Earthâs continents had moved! Wegenerâs hypothesis was that all the continents were once joined together in a single landmass and have since drifted apart. Wegenerâs idea that the continents slowly moved over Earthâs surface became known as continental drift.