Taxacom: Marie Tharp

[Tony Rees]

Quite an interesting overview here:
Doel, R.E., Levin, T.J. and Marker, M.K., 2006. Extending modern
cartography to the ocean depths: military patronage, Cold War priorities,
and the Heezen–Tharp mapping project, 1952–1959. *Journal of Historical
Geography*, *32*(3), pp.605-626.

I believe it makes it clear that Heezen was the senior researcher and had
the drive to acquire all the new data, and Tharp was the cartographer
(initially employed as his assistant) who drew it up and first noticed the
consistent structure of the underwater rift valleys in the mid-Atlantic
Ridge. Their work was published jointly, famously in 1959 as "The floors of
the oceans: I. The North Atlantic" by Heezen, Sharp and Ewing (Ewing was
the lab head I believe) but also earlier as well (Heezen, B. C. & Tharp, M.
1954. Physiographic diagram of the western North Atlantic. Bulletin of the
Geological Society of America, 65, 1261). It may well be that Heezen got
more credit than Sharp at the time since he had funding to go to meetings
and present their work (also women did not go to sea to collect data),
and/or there was a contemporary tendency to minimise the contribution of
women, but Sharp's name was definitely in there. Since I was not around at
the time - or at least was very young in the 1950s - it is hard for me to
comment further about public perceptions of the day.

It would also seem that the Heezen–Tharp maps were generally produced in
the context of Heezen's view that the earth was expanding, rather than
being a proof of plate tectonics; that view came later (promulgated by
others I think), but built upon the Heezen–Tharp maps as evidence of the
new/revived theory, now of course the accepted view.

Just some random thoughts above based on a very brief foray into the
literature as stimulated by your message. John (otherwise not an area of
expertise for me!) I was however interested in Tharp's remarks elsewhere
that she investigated and rejected a number of topics in
geology/geomorphology before settling on cartography, including
micropaleontology (all that boring microscope study) and macropaleontology
(too long to prepare the specimens!!)

Cheers - Tony

Tony Rees, New South Wales, Australia
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On Fri, 29 Sept 2023 at 04:14, Tony Rees <tonyrees49 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Not completely un-noticed (now at least):
> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FMarie_Tharp&data=05%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C227edfc71f0e40b8428f08dbc057a42c%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638315254883413365%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=5GaVCsj68VUPm61DLIzFsnTUVRHJlpB%2FNQH7CJimiUg%3D&reserved=0
>
> Regards - Tony
>
> Tony Rees, New South Wales, Australia
> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fabout.me%2FTonyRees&data=05%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C227edfc71f0e40b8428f08dbc057a42c%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638315254883413365%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=i0xwTn%2FgbdaLrmruV13c4KGV90sCLop5Wcbit4XIaLU%3D&reserved=0
>
>
> On Fri, 29 Sept 2023 at 00:41, John Grehan via Taxacom <
> taxacom at lists.ku.edu> wrote:
>
>> If you've never heard of Marie Tharp, then you are not alone. Never heard
>> of her myself before now. In the 'official' histories of plate tectonics
>> the discovery of the mid ocean ridges goes to Heezen, and Ewing, the head
>> of the Lamont lab, who in 1956 published on the discovery of a ridge
>> covering about 40,000 miles of the ocean's floor. Only it was never their
>> discovery, but that of Tharp, who was, of course, not credited for this
>> (and does this not remind you of the double helix scam?). Tharp was given
>> the tedious and detailed task of mapping the ocean seafloor from echo
>> soundings (I guess the men were too important to get their hands on a
>> pencil). "After weeks of looking at the data and plotting the lines, Tharp
>> had noticed a pattern. She had about half a dozen lines running across the
>> ocean, and many had a v-shaped dip in a similar spot, right on top of an
>> underwater mountain chain, the Mid-Atlantic Rift. It looked like a rift.
>> But it couldn't be, Heezen told her, because that would be too much
>> like continental
>> drift
>> <
>> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.businessinsider.com%2Fvideo-earth-tectonic-plates-billion-years-2021-2&data=05%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C227edfc71f0e40b8428f08dbc057a42c%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638315254883413365%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=gqSMfnpsvtMUv7lI7iFdYXdjczlD7%2B3cQeeR8LlA0GI%3D&reserved=0
>> >.
>> He and "almost everyone else at Lamont, and in the United States, thought
>> continental drift was impossible," according to Tharp. It would take
>> Heezen
>> months to accept what he'd dismissed as Tharp's "girl talk."
>>
>> So once again, the  history of science here is so much bs (and ironically
>> b
>> = bull in both noun and adjective). Science is supposed to be about the
>> discovery of knowledge, but all too often it is also about power and
>> suppression. As noted by Derrida, for all knowledge gained, something
>> escapes and is lost. Only in such cases as this the loss is deliberate. At
>> least history can sometimes be revisited. The worry is what continues to
>> go
>> on in the present.
>>
>> Cheers, John
>>
>> --
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>