Marie Tharp (July 30, 1920 – August 23, 2006) was an American geologist and oceanographic cartographer who, in partnership with Bruce Heezen, created the first scientific map of the Atlantic Ocean floor. Tharp's work revealed the detailed topography and multi-dimensional geographical landscape of the ocean bottom.

Who mapped the ocean floor in 1952?

Tharp and Heezen began mapping the individual ocean floors in 1952, but found obstacles in their way. The big one was invisibility: when it comes to mapping the ocean floor, the sea gets in the way of seeing. The second obstacle was limited data.

Who mapped the ocean floor first?

Born in Michigan in 1920, Marie Tharp was a geologist and cartographer during her lifetime. In partnership with her colleague Bruce Heezen, Tharp was the first to scientifically map the ocean floor. Tharp began her work in science as a geologist for Stanolind Oil in the 1940s.

How did scientists map the ocean floor?

Dive and Discover : Oceanographic Tools: Sonar. Echo sounding is the key method scientists use to map the seafloor today. The technique, first used by German scientists in the early 20th century, uses sound waves bounced off the ocean bottom.

Is the ocean floor mapped?

Only about five percent of the global ocean has been mapped by modern multibeam sonar systems to provide detailed information about the seafloor.

The Scientist Who Mapped the Seafloor: Marie Tharp | Great Minds

27 related questions found

Why is mapping the ocean floor important?

High-resolution seafloor mapping is a critical tool for regulating underwater resource exploration, extraction, and equipment, allowing us to decide what and where is safe. Seafloor maps also ensure that ships are able to safely maneuver around natural – and human-made – structures on the ocean bottom.

Who are Tharp heezen?

Marie Tharp is credited with producing one of the world's first comprehensive maps of the ocean floor. She and research partner Bruce Heezen transformed a once barren and flat landscape into a dynamic three-dimensional space with mountains, valleys and trenches.

Who discovered the bottom of the ocean?

(CNN) — What lies in the chasmic depths at the bottom of the world's seas? American undersea explorer Victor Vescovo has become the first person to dive to the deepest points of the earth's five oceans, and he's now back on dry land to reveal his discoveries.

Who are Marie Tharp's parents?

Marie Tharp was born on July 30, 1920, in Ypsilanti, Michigan, the only child of Bertha Louise Tharp, a German and Latin teacher, and William Edgar Tharp, a soil surveyor for the United States Department of Agriculture.

What did Harry Hess discover?

Harry Hess was a geologist and Navy submarine commander during World War II. Part of his mission had been to study the deepest parts of the ocean floor. In 1946 he had discovered that hundreds of flat-topped mountains, perhaps sunken islands, shape the Pacific floor.

What did Marie Tharp discover when she mapped the ocean floor?

In 1977, Tharp and Heezen published the first complete world map of the ocean floors. Their work helped to prove the theory of plate tectonics, the idea that the continents move over time, which was controversial until then. The discovery revolutionized our understanding of how nearly everything on the planet works.

Who Marie Tharp mother?

Her father, William, was a surveyor who made soil classification maps for the U.S. Department of Agriculture; her mother, Bertha, taught German and Latin. Tharp later calculated that she had attended two dozen schools because the family traveled for her father's work.

Why was Marie tharps work so important?

Marie Tharp produced one of the world's first maps of the ocean floor. Despite being a woman in a male dominated career, her work helped bring to life the unknown ocean world, and helped prove important information about our earth's development.

Have we explored the bottom of the ocean?

2019: Victor Vescovo reached a deeper part of Challenger Deep at 35,853 feet, breaking the record for the deepest dive in DSV Limiting Factor. His dive was part of the Five Deeps Expedition to reach the bottom of every ocean on Earth.

Can we reach the bottom of the ocean?

The deepest point ever reached by man is 35,858 feet below the surface of the ocean, which happens to be as deep as water gets on earth. To go deeper, you'll have to travel to the bottom of the Challenger Deep, a section of the Mariana Trench under the Pacific Ocean 200 miles southwest of Guam.

What is bottom ocean?

The seabed (also known as the seafloor, sea floor, ocean floor, and ocean bottom) is the bottom of the ocean. ... Most of the ocean is very deep, where the seabed is known as the abyssal plain.

What hypothesis did mapping the ocean floor support?

The recognition of such a connection helped confirm the seafloor-spreading hypothesis by pin-pointing the zones where Hess had predicted oceanic crust is being generated (along the ridges) and the zones where oceanic lithosphere sinks back into the mantle (beneath the trenches).

How long did it take Marie Tharp to map the ocean floor?

It took her a year or so to convince Heezen that the rift was real, and it took the two several more years to finish their first map of the North Atlantic in 1957.

What did scientists discover in the 1950s 60s as they mapped the ocean floor?

Mid-ocean ridges were not discovered until the work of Heezen and Tharp in the 1950s and 1960s. To this day, scientists still know relatively little about the seafloor. ... Tharp carefully mapped the Atlantic ocean and discovered the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a giant chain of mountains running along the middle of the ocean.

Why were NOAA scientists mapping the sea floor?

To Understand What's There. Once scientists or resource managers have identified an area they would like to know more about, ships equipped with technology such as multibeam sonar can collect data used to generate high-resolution bathymetric maps of that part of the seafloor. ...

When did sea floor mapping start?

The first detailed map of the ocean's bottom in 1957 helped revolutionize our understanding of the geology of the seafloor—and contributed directly to the development of the theory of plate tectonics.

Why is it that mapping the ocean floor is difficult?

Mapping the seafloor is very challenging, because we cannot use the same techniques that we would use on land. To map the deep ocean, we use a tool called a multibeam echo-sounder, which is attached to a ship or a submarine vessel.

What did Marie Tharp do as a kid?

Her father worked as a soil surveyor, which means he made maps based on the soil data he collected. Tharp often went out into the field with her father, so she was introduced to mapmaking at an early age.