Science & invention
Marie Tharp
1920–2006 · geologist, oceanographic cartographer
Ypsilanti-born geologist whose maps of the ocean floor revealed the Mid-Atlantic Ridge's rift valley and helped prove plate tectonics.
- Born
Ypsilanti, Michigan- Died
Nyack, New York
aged 86- Detroit years
- 1920s, 1943–1944
- Field
- Science & invention
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Tharp was born in Ypsilanti, the only child of a schoolteacher and a U.S. Department of Agriculture soil surveyor whose work kept the family moving; by her late teens she had attended more than a dozen schools in several states. During World War II the University of Michigan opened its petroleum geology program to women, and she earned a master's degree in Ann Arbor in 1944. After a stint in the oil business she joined Columbia University's geology lab, where, working with Bruce Heezen, she turned echo-sounding data into the first detailed maps of the Atlantic floor. In 1952–53 she identified a rift valley along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, evidence for continental drift that many colleagues first dismissed. Her 1977 World Ocean Floor panorama, painted with Heinrich Berann, became one of the best-known maps of the century.
Highlights
- Master's degree in petroleum geology, University of Michigan, 1944
- Identified the rift valley of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge in the early 1950s
- World Ocean Floor panorama with Bruce Heezen and Heinrich Berann, 1977
- Named one of the 20th century's great cartographers by the Library of Congress, 1997
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Studied here · 1943–1944
University of Michigan
She earned her master's in petroleum geology here when the wartime program first admitted women.