Pre-Owned Soundings : The Story of the Remarkable Woman Who Mapped the Ocean Floor (Hardcover) 9780805092158

A compelling portrait of one of the most interesting "forgotten" women of the twentieth century, the scientist who mapped, for the first time, the ocean floor

Until Marie Tharp's groundbreaking work in the 1950s, the floor of the ocean was a mystery--then, as now, we knew less about the ocean than we did about outer space. In a time when women in the scientific community were routinely dismissed, Tharp's work changed our understanding of the earth's geologic evolution. While her partner, Bruce Heezen, went on expeditions to collect soundings (records of sonar pings measuring the ocean's depth across its entire expanse), Tharp turned this data into beautiful and controversial maps that laid the groundwork for proving the theory of continental drift. Tharp's maps showed for the first time that the continents were moving and had always been moving, and that what had happened over eons under the sea was as "visible" now as looking at the same phenomenon on land. Her maps have been called some of "the most remarkable achievements in modern cartography" and yet no one knows her name. The brilliant young writer Hali Felt captures the romance of scientific discovery and brings to vivid life this pioneering scientist who changed the way we view the earth. Contributor: Hali Felt