Nice work Tomas.

Nice article, but I'd correct the spelling of Antarctica in the second illustration, to avoid embarrassment.

I'm suprised the author didn't just point to the string of Hawaiian islands that show the shift of the sea floor over time?

http://www.konaoceanvilla.com/images/hawaii_state_map.gif

Very interesting article Thomas. Wegener's work is all the more remarkable considering we have only had the benefit of GNSS (eg GPS) measurements that have accurately determined plate movements for the last 30 years.

As a meteorologist, I would have preferred the first line to have read,
"Exactly 100 years ago, German meteorologist and geophysicist Alfred Wegener presented his theory of continental drift......... "
We usually claim him as one of our own.

Kindly give credit for the development of the theory of plate tectonics where due -- Canadian J. Tuzo Wilson.
In 1963, Wilson developed a concept crucial to the plate-tectonics theory. He suggested that the Hawaiian and other volcanic island chains may have formed due to the movement of a plate over a stationary "hotspot" in the mantle. This hypothesis eliminated an apparent contradiction to the plate-tectonics theory -- the occurrence of active volcanoes located many thousands of kilometers from the nearest plate boundary. Hundreds of subsequent studies have proven Wilson right. However, in the early 1960s, his idea was considered so radical that his "hotspot" manuscript was rejected by all the major international scientific journals. This manuscript ultimately was published in 1963 in a relatively obscure publication, the Canadian Journal of Physics, and became a milestone in plate tectonics.
Another of Wilson's important contributions to the development of the plate-tectonics theory was published two years later. He proposed that there must be a third type of plate boundary to connect the oceanic ridges and trenches, which he noted can end abruptly and "transform" into major faults that slip horizontally. A well-known example of such a transform-fault boundary is the San Andreas Fault zone. Unlike ridges and trenches, transform faults offset the crust horizontally, without creating or destroying crust.
http://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/dynamic/Wilson.html

The author inquires regarding the type of events at 3.2 billion years ago which may have resulted in a shift from vertical tectonic patterns to plate tectonic patterns.:

At 3.24-3.26 Ga a cluster of very large asteroids (diameters estimated at >20 km) is recorded from the Archaean Barberton reenstone belt, South Africa, by Lowe and byerly, and is correlated by myself in the Pilbara, Western Australia, marking an abrupt shift from greenstone-tonalite crustal conditions to continental-type sedimentary assemblage of turbidites, conglomerates and felsic pyroclastics.

Prior to ~3.2 Ga greenstone belts are arcuate and tonalite plutons dome-shaped, suggesting mostly vertical tectonics. Post ~3.2 Ga greenstone tectonic patterns are more linear and are time zoned - suggesting lateral accretion and the onset of subduction.

Relevant publications include:

LOWE D. R., BYERLY G. R., KYTE F. T., SHUKOLYUKOV A., ASARO F. &
KRULL A. 2003. Spherule beds 3.47–3.34 Ga-old in the Barberton
greenstone belt, South Africa: a record of large meteorite impacts and their influence on early crustal and biological evolution. Astrobiology 3, 7–48.

GLIKSON, A.Y. and VICKERS, J., 2006. The 3.26–3.24 Ga Barberton asteroid impact cluster: Tests of tectonic and magmatic consequences, Pilbara Craton, Western Australia. Earth and Planetary Science Letters 241 (2006) 11 –20

GLIKSON A.Y. AND VICKERS, J., 2010 - Asteroid impact connections of crustal evolution. Australian Journal of Earth Sciences (2010) 57, (79–95).

Further information is available on request.

Actually, I do believe the original proposal for the possibility of plate tectonics and continental drift, turned up in the year 1596.

This was in the sixth edition of the very rare printed edition of the world atlas, which was a compilation of the wide variety of new/old world exploration maps bound in one volume. The map compiler/editor noted similarities of how the then known major continents, all fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle.

The only reason, I believe why many geologists from 1896 until circa 1966, fought tooth and nail/no holds barred against this old/new theory, was purely based on money. Since, in reality this old/new theory, meant that literally in reality, much of watt they were teaching, was basically bunkum. Hence, the vested interest in denial of reality, in order to disprove, something that was quite obvious to all, visually.

Albert Einstein, encountered an almost identical problem, when the "Theory of Relativity" was first published. This theory revolutionized physics, and heralded the dawn of the atomic age. It is a shame we turned five hundred plus squares miles around Hanford, Washington State into an uninhabitable zone of circa thirty thousand years, for such was the evil learning curve about learning the good and the bad about atoms. These days, when sad little people, attempt disprove the theory of relativity, a majority of people deem them to be foolish silly insane cranks, in need of their medication.

The same, also applies to sad little mononeurons, who ignore evolution and faithfully believe this planet, is a mere five thousand years old.

Now, most geologists acting against Alfred Wegener's extension work on the old/new theory dating back to 1596, were in complete denial of that reality, for the next seventy odd years. However, they were only serving, their vested self interest, for money only, period.

In the sixties, when a new generation of research scientists working in another new field of science found the continental plate subduction zones at the bottom of the then mostly unexplored ocean bottoms. Oceans cover approximately 70% of this world's surface and the vast majority of information about the oceans , is from 1970 onwards. This of course, gives one an interesting shifting baseline, one can say, as to watt is normal and watt is not.

Strangely, fast forward another fifty years, some geologists, who derive fiscal or monetary benefits from mineral/carbon pollution ore bodies and the soon to run out carbon based liquid crude oil slime royalties, are now deliberately funding another level of pure ignorance about global warming/GHG.

Yes, Virginia, even the major oil companies, are all fully aware, that peak oil was in 2006! In addition, all current sources, are in direct decline in production levels, to the point where no more oil will be likely to be pumped out of the UK sector of the North Sea by 2020/21. Interestingly, those are the same years that Scotland, has programmed itself, for energy self sufficiency, from you guessed it, all renewable sources, too. South of Hadrian's Wall, in Cameron's conservative run, mostly a failed democracy turning into a vicious police state called little England, living in self induced fear of terrorism, they have pretty much stuck their collective heads in their posteriors, like their money masters have told them to do, over the same issue of sourcing electricity from clean renewable energy sources.

Such, is the life of denial, where a small minority are funded to spread the bull dust around to the very receptive cognitive dissonance repeat after me loud noise slaves and the few very sad mostly incompetent brain washed ignorant denialati mononeurons, who cannot or will not think about reality of the real world they live in!

Science rocks, and for those few, who are living in any form of ignorance and being served up with a daily dose of propaganda and fear, that defies reality, it must be like living at the bottom of a working mine pit from hades!

Such is life.