As massive a project as it would see to be now, once upon a time humanity needed to formulate the theory of plate tectonics.
That’s where perhaps the most influential cartographer of the 20th century, and of all human history besides, Marie Tharp came into the picture: hand-combining the hard data collected by colleagues into the first proof of the theory of continental drift and plate tectonics.
Before this, it was believed that the Earth began as a blob of molten material. As it cooled, like a date drying in the sun, cracks began to form the ocean basins and mountain ranges as heavier metals wiggled down towards the core and lighter metals rose up to the surface.
Tharp would prove instrumental in advancing the true understanding of the movement of the continents from her position in the geology department at Columbia University, piecing together maps of the ocean floor made by sonar depth measurements gathered by the department’s head.
These maps, when combined with a colleague’s maps of the placement of undersea volcanoes, provided irrefutable evidence that Pangea had split apart based on the movements of the continental plates.
An animated short explaining her pioneering work was recently chosen for National Geographic’s Short Film Showcase.
In 1999, Tharp won the Mary Sears Woman Pioneer in Oceanography Award for her discovery. In her acceptance speech, she colored in the glory of her accomplishment by highlighting it as once-in-a-lifetime.
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“Not too many people can say this about their lives: The whole world was spread out before me (or at least, the 70% of it covered by oceans). I had a blank canvas to fill with extraordinary possibilities, a fascinating jigsaw puzzle to piece together: mapping the world’s vast hidden seafloor.
“It was a once-in-a-lifetime—a once-in-the-history-of-the-world—opportunity for anyone, but especially for a woman in the 1940s. The nature of the times, the state of the science, and events large and small, logical and illogical, combined to make it all happen.”
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