Soundings

Before Marie Tharp's groundbreaking work in the 1950s, the ocean floor was a mystery?then, as now, we knew less about the bottom of the sea than we did about outer space. In a time when women were held back by the casually sexist atmosphere of mid-twentieth-century academia?a time when trained geologists and scientists like Tharp were routinely relegated to the role of secretary or assistant?Tharp's work would completely change the world's understanding of our planet's evolution. By transforming dry data into beautifully detailed maps that laid the groundwork for proving the then controversial theory of continental drift, Tharp, along with her lifelong partner in science, Bruce Heezen, upended scientific consensus and ushered in a new era in geology and oceanography.