Google Doodle celebrates the life of Marie Tharp, an American geologist and oceanographic cartographer. She co-published the first world map of the ocean floors.
Google Doodle celebrates the life of Marie Tharp, an American geologist and oceanographic cartographer. She helped in proving the theory of continental drift. On this day in 1998, the Library of Congress named her one of the greatest cartographer of the 20th century. She co-published the first world map of the ocean floors. Her groundbreaking maps changed the way we view our planet.
Google Doodle features an interactive exploration of Tharp’s life. Her story is narrated by Caitlyn Larsen, Rebecca Nesel and Dr. Tiara Moore, three notable women who are currently living out Tharp’s legacy by making strides in the traditionally male-dominated ocean science and geology spaces.
Marie Tharp, the only child of her parents, was born on July 30, 1920 in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Her father, who worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, gave her an early introduction to mapmaking. She attended the University of Michigan for her master’s degree in petroleum geology.
Tharp moved to New York in 1948 and became the first woman to work at the Lamont Geological Observatory where she met geologist Bruce Heezen.
Heezen gathered ocean-depth data in the Atlantic Ocean, which Tharp used to create maps of the mysterious ocean floor. New findings from echo sounders (sonars used to find water depth) helped her discover the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. She brought these findings to Heezen, who infamously dismissed this as “girl talk”.
However, when these V-shaped rifts were compared with earthquake epicenter maps, Heezen couldn’t ignore the fact. Plate tectonics and continental drift were no longer just theories—the seafloor was undoubtedly spreading.
In 1957, Tharp and Heezen co-published the first map of the ocean floor in the North Atlantic. Twenty years later, National Geographic published the first world map of the entire ocean floor penned by Marie Tharp and Bruce Heezen titled “The World Ocean Floor”.
Marie Tharp donated her entire map collection to the Library of Congress in 1995. On the 100th anniversary celebration of its Geography and Map Division, the Library of Congress named her one of the most important cartographers in the 20th century.
In 2001, the same observatory where she started her career awarded her with its first annual Lamont-Doherty Heritage Award.
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