The scientist who mapped the ocean floor — and found the rift tearing it apart

In the 1950s, Marie Tharp hand-plotted thousands of ship soundings and spotted a deep rift valley running down the center of the Atlantic's mid-ocean ridge. Her research partner Bruce Heezen first dismissed it as "girl talk," but the rift lined up exactly with earthquake epicenters, making her map key evidence for continental drift and plate tectonics.

— Hali Felt, Soundings: The Story of the Remarkable Woman Who Mapped the Ocean Floor — Book, 2012 (covers Tharp's 1957 physiographic map of the North Atlantic, Lamont Geological Observatory)
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