Frank Bursley Taylor was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana on November 23, 1860, the son of a lawyer.

He became a specialist in the glacial geology of the Great Lakes, and proposed to the Geological Society of America on December 29, 1908[3] that the continents moved on the Earth's surface, that a shallow region in the Atlantic marks where Africa and South America were once joined, and that the collisions of continents could uplift mountains.

[8] But even with Wegener's extensive extra research the idea did not achieve acceptance until the 1960s when a vast weight of evidence had accrued via Harry Hess, Frederick Vine and Drummond Matthews.

The initial key to his proposal, the complementary shapes of the continental masses, had been observed as early as the 16th century by Abraham Ortelius, but had lacked a credible driving force.

He had proposed that the continents ploughed through the ocean floors towards the equator, wrinkling their Equator-facing fronts to produce the Himalayas and Alps.