People & Stories

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Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory

The woman who mapped the ocean floor

Marie Tharp's work proved continental drift — and nobody believed her.

For two decades, Marie Tharp was denied a seat on the research ships that gathered the sonar data she analysed. Working from her Columbia University office, she drew the first detailed map of the Atlantic seafloor and discovered the Mid-Atlantic Ridge's rift valley. Her male colleagues dismissed her findings as "girl talk." She was right.