Taxacom: Marie Tharp

Thu Sep 28 15:07:35 CDT 2023

Thanks for the additional insights Tony. Very interesting. John

On Thu, Sep 28, 2023 at 3:18 PM Tony Rees <tonyrees49 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fabout.me%2FTonyRees&data=05%7C01%7Ctaxacom%40lists.ku.edu%7C8f5c737023e1450a581a08dbc05ea580%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638315284960153189%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=LreaAaJlt85UsRhRWwaTWlg%2F5CymnwNcd75nEUJyf6s%3D&reserved=0
>
>
> 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%7C8f5c737023e1450a581a08dbc05ea580%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638315284960153189%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=p85%2FyxbvUF4gfODg0%2BSkooCEff7IX0mAoDY3K25KcAw%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%7C8f5c737023e1450a581a08dbc05ea580%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638315284960153189%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=LreaAaJlt85UsRhRWwaTWlg%2F5CymnwNcd75nEUJyf6s%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%7C8f5c737023e1450a581a08dbc05ea580%7C3c176536afe643f5b96636feabbe3c1a%7C0%7C0%7C638315284960153189%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=UX30zvZsf5SCc%2FMsUelpME6P%2B6f5Q7U0pFDm3FXHr80%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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>>>
>>> Nurturing nuance while assailing ambiguity and admiring alliteration for
>>> about 36 years, 1987-2023.
>>>
>>

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