{"id":1786589,"date":"2018-11-06T12:56:48","date_gmt":"2018-11-06T17:56:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/?p=1786589"},"modified":"2018-11-06T12:56:48","modified_gmt":"2018-11-06T17:56:48","slug":"soundings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2018\/11\/soundings\/","title":{"rendered":"Soundings"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I’ve been meaning to read Soundings<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, Hali Felt<\/a>\u2019s biography of Marie Tharp<\/a>, since it came out in 2012<\/a>. Since then I’ve seen a flurry of articles, interviews, videos and other tributes<\/a> concerning Tharp, whose reputation, which grew during her lifetime, continues to grow in the 12 years since her death in 2006 at the age of 86.<\/p>\n

The bare bones of Tharp’s story are therefore fairly well known: while mapping the floor of the Atlantic Ocean, she discovered the presence of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge\u2014and, more specifically, its rift valley, providing tangible evidence of continental drift. Because continental drift was at that point considered to be a crackpot theory, it took some doing for Tharp’s discovery to be accepted; and when it was her contributions were to some extent minimized.<\/p>\n

While Felt’s book is positioned as a biography, its strength is in the details of that pivotal discovery: how and where it was made, and by whom, and in what context. Tharp’s work was not done in a vacuum, and how and why she was where she was is important. Felt sets the stage for us: not only does she take us through Tharp’s early childhood and rather variegated education and her arrival in 1948 at the Lamont Observatory<\/a>, she gives us a short history of that Observatory, of the theory of continental drift, of her colleagues\u2014notably her lifelong collaborator (and possibly life partner) Bruce Heezen<\/a>\u00a0and Observatory director (and sometime antagonist)\u00a0Maurice Ewing<\/a>. More than anything else, Soundings<\/em> provides context<\/em> for Tharp’s discovery: by the time we’re done, we know how important it was, and why. We’ve been well briefed.<\/p>\n

\"Physiographic<\/a><\/p>\n

Felt is less successful in building a portrait of Tharp herself. Some areas of her non-work life\u2014her childhood, family and college education, for example\u2014are extremely well covered, but other areas have considerable gaps, particularly those involving her personal life. The nature of Tharp’s relationship with Heezen is only hinted at, as is an early, unsuccessful marriage to someone else. Her later life, supported by a motley gang of eccentrics called Tharpophiles, is also incompletely covered. The elisions, however unintended, are frustrating. I suspect the author was a prisoner of her source material, which in places she follows very closely; I would have liked it if more had been done to fill in the gaps.<\/p>\n

Soundings<\/em> was published in hardcover by Henry Holt in 2012. It’s available in paperback and ebook from Picador.<\/p>\n

Amazon<\/a> | iBooks<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been meaning to read Soundings, Hali Felt\u2019s biography of Marie Tharp, since it came out in 2012. Since then I’ve seen a flurry of articles, interviews, videos and other tributes concerning Tharp, whose reputation,… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,230],"tags":[772,591,430],"class_list":["post-1786589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-oceans","tag-continental-drift","tag-marie-tharp","tag-seafloor"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5385,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2012\/09\/soundings-a-bio-of-marie-tharp\/","url_meta":{"origin":1786589,"position":0},"title":"Soundings: A Biography of Marie Tharp","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"14 September 2012","format":"link","excerpt":"A review in Maclean's brought to my attention a book that came out two months ago: Hali Felt\u2019s Soundings, a biography of Marie Tharp (1920-2006), who with her partner, Bruce Heezen, created the first global map of the ocean floor, discovered the Mid-Atlantic Ridge's rift valley, and helped provide the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Oceans"","block_context":{"text":"Oceans","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/oceans\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2530,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/08\/marie-tharp-profile\/","url_meta":{"origin":1786589,"position":1},"title":"Marie Tharp Profile","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"4 August 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"The Smithsonian's Ocean Blog has a profile of ocean cartographer Marie Tharp, whose discovery of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge's rift valley provided hard evidence for the theory of plate tectonics. Previously: Soundings: A Biography of Marie Tharp;\u00a0Marie Tharp and Plate Tectonics;\u00a0Marie Tharp. Soundings by Hali Felt: Amazon\u00a0(Kindle) \/ iBooks","rel":"","context":"In "Geology"","block_context":{"text":"Geology","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/geology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"tharp-heezen","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/tharp-heezen-150x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2735,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/08\/marie-tharp-continental-drift-as-girl-talk\/","url_meta":{"origin":1786589,"position":2},"title":"Marie Tharp: Continental Drift as ‘Girl Talk’","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"31 August 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"Another profile of ocean cartographer Marie Tharp, this time from Smithsonian.com's Erin Blakemore. As Blakemore recounts, Tharp\u00a0crunched\u00a0and mapped the sonar sounding data collected by her collaborator, Bruce Heezen; her calculations revealed a huge valley in the middle of a ridge in the North Atlantic seafloor. \u201cWhen I showed what I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Geology"","block_context":{"text":"Geology","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/geology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"tharp-heezen","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/tharp-heezen-150x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1151,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2016\/03\/women-in-cartography\/","url_meta":{"origin":1786589,"position":3},"title":"Women in Cartography","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"8 March 2016","format":"link","excerpt":"Something worth\u00a0mentioning on International Women's Day: the Boston Public Library's exhibition,\u00a0Women in Cartography: Five Centuries of Accomplishments, opened last October and runs until 26 March at the Central Library's Leventhal Map Center. The exhibition can also be viewed online. A few books about women in cartography: Soundings: The Story of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Cartography"","block_context":{"text":"Cartography","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/cartography\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"women-cartography-books","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/women-cartography-books-1024x512.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/women-cartography-books-1024x512.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/women-cartography-books-1024x512.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/women-cartography-books-1024x512.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1789071,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2020\/07\/marie-tharp-at-100\/","url_meta":{"origin":1786589,"position":4},"title":"Marie Tharp at 100","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"27 July 2020","format":"link","excerpt":"July 30 marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of pioneering ocean cartographer Marie Tharp, whose seafloor maps provided evidence of continental drift. Columbia University\u2019s Earth Institute is marking the event with blog posts, interviews, workshops and other social media and multimedia activity. See, for example, this overview of her\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Oceans"","block_context":{"text":"Oceans","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/oceans\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/ocean-speaks-135x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1809964,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2022\/11\/marie-tharp-as-google-doodle\/","url_meta":{"origin":1786589,"position":5},"title":"Marie Tharp as Google Doodle","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"21 November 2022","format":"link","excerpt":"Marie Tharp is the subject of today\u2019s Google Doodle, with an interactive narration of her life story. That story\u2014how Tharp\u2019s pioneering work mapping the ocean floor helped prove the theory of continental drift\u2014is familiar to long-time readers of this blog: this is the 12th post I\u2019ve made about the legendary\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Oceans"","block_context":{"text":"Oceans","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/oceans\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Google Doodle of Marie Tharp (screenshot)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/google-doodle-marie-tharp-1024x410.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/google-doodle-marie-tharp-1024x410.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/google-doodle-marie-tharp-1024x410.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/google-doodle-marie-tharp-1024x410.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1786589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1786589"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1786589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1786595,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1786589\/revisions\/1786595"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1786589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1786589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1786589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}