Marie Tharp: Who was she and why does the Google doodle look different on November 21st?

The Google doodle looks different this Monday, November 21 as it celebrates Marie Tharp, geologist and cartographer American oceanographic institution that has a huge history related to knowledge and teaching.

Marie Tharp was born on July 30, 1920 in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Tharp’s father, who worked for the United States Department of Agriculture, gave him an early introduction to mapmaking.

I study in University of Michigan. There he earned his master’s degree in petroleum geology; this was especially impressive given that few women worked in science during this period. She moved to New York in 1948 and became the first woman to work at the Lamont Geological Observatory, where he met geologist Bruce Heezen.

With her thoughts put into practice, Marie Tharp helped test the Theories of continental drift. In addition, he co-published the world’s first ocean floor map. However, the tribute is being given today because on a day like this, but in 1998, the Library of Congress named Tharp one of the greatest cartographers of the 20th century.

This November 21 doodle features an interactive exploration of Tharp’s life. The story of him is told by Caitlyn Larsen, Rebecca Nesel and Tiara Moorethree extraordinary women who today live in Tharp’s legacy by advancing the traditional spaces of geology and ocean science dominated by men.

​

​Marie Tharp, her masterpiece and the scribble that honors her

Meeting Bruce Hezzen meant a lot to Tharp as he wanted to meet first and grow professionally later. Heezen was the one who collected the data the depth of the ocean in the Atlantic Ocean, which Tharp used to create maps of the mysterious seabed. New discoveries from echo sounders (sonar used to find the depth of water) helped her discover the mid-atlantic ridge. He took these findings to Heezen, who dismissed it as “girl talk”.

However, when they compared these V-shaped cracks to maps of earthquake epicenters, Heezen couldn’t ignore the facts. plate tectonics and continental drift were no longer just theories: the depths certainly it was expanding.

In 1957, Tharp and Heezen jointly published the first map of the ocean floor in the North Atlantic. Twenty years later, National Geographic published the world’s first map of the entire ocean floor written by Tharp and Heezen, titled “The bottom of the world’s ocean”.

tarp donated his map collection to the Library of Congress in 1995. In celebrating the centennial of the Division of Geography and Maps, the Library of Congress named her one of the greatest cartographers of the 20th century.

He passed away on August 23, 2006.