Editing Abraham Ortelius (section)

==Imagining continental drift==
Ortelius was the first to underline the geometrical similarity between the coasts of America and Europe-Africa and to propose [[continental drift]] as an explanation. Kious described Ortelius's thoughts in this way:<ref>{{cite book |last=Kious |first=W.J. |author2=Tilling, R.I. |title=This Dynamic Earth: the Story of Plate Tectonics |orig-year=1996 |url=http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/dynamic.html |access-date=2008-01-29 |edition=Online |publisher=U.S. Geological Survey |isbn=0-16-048220-8 |chapter=Historical perspective |chapter-url=http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/historical.html |year=2001}}; Ortelius, ''Thesaurus Geographicus'' (Antwerp, (Belgium): Officina Plantiniana [Plantin Press] 1596), [https://books.google.com/books?id=AWhXAAAAcAAJ&pg=RA1-PR24 entry: "Gadiricus"]</ref>
{{quote|Abraham Ortelius in his work ''Thesaurus Geographicus'' … suggested that the Americas were "torn away from Europe and Africa … by earthquakes and floods" and went on to say: "The vestiges of the rupture reveal themselves, if someone brings forward a map of the world and considers carefully the coasts of the three [continents]."}}
Ortelius's observations of continental juxtaposition and his proposal of rupture and separation went unnoticed until the late 20th century. However, they were repeated in the 18th and 19th centuries (for example, [[Antonio Snider-Pellegrini]]) and later by [[Alfred Wegener]], who published his hypothesis of [[continental drift]] in 1912 and in following years.<ref>Wegener, Alfred (July 1912); Wegener, Alfred (1966)</ref> Because his publications were widely available in German and English and because he adduced geological support for the idea, Wegener is credited by most geologists as the first to recognize the possibility of continental drift.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=McIntyre |first1=Michael |last2=Eilers |first2=H. Peter |last3=Mairs |first3=John |title=Physical geography |year=1991 |publisher=Wiley |location=New York |isbn=0-471-62017-3 |page=[https://archive.org/details/physicalgeograph00mcinrich/page/273 273] |url=https://archive.org/details/physicalgeograph00mcinrich/page/273 }}</ref> [[Frank Bursley Taylor]] (in 1908) was also an early advocate of continental drift.  During the 1960s geophysical and geological evidence for [[seafloor spreading]] at [[mid-oceanic ridge]]s became increasingly compelling to geologists (e.g. [[Harry H. Hess]], 1960) and finally established continental drift as an ongoing global mechanism (e.g. by the work of [[W. Jason Morgan]] by 1967 and [[Dan McKenzie (geophysicist)|Dan McKenzie]] in 1968). After more than three centuries, Ortelius's supposition of continental drift was vindicated.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/historical.html|title=Historical perspective |work=This Dynamic Earth |publisher=[[USGS]]}}</ref>