Tharp and Heezen's physiographic map of the ocean floor
Mapa fisiográfico del fondo oceánico de Tharp y Heezen
- Date
- 1977 · confidence high
- Place
- Lamont-Doherty, Palisades, New York, United States
- Credited to
- Marie Tharp, Bruce Heezen and Heinrich Berann
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What it is
A painted panorama of the entire submarine relief with ridges, trenches and abyssal plains, which Marie Tharp built from sounding data over years. It made the ocean floor visible as a landscape for the first time and convinced many of continental drift.
The first North Atlantic map (Tharp and Heezen) dates from 1957 and the ridge's central rift was found by Tharp around 1952; the world panorama painted by Berann was published in 1977.
What it led to
- acceptance of plate tectonics and seafloor spreading
- later seafloor mapping with multibeam sonar and satellites