Soundings: The Story of the Remarkable Woman Who Mapped the Ocean Floor

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Soundings: The Story of the Remarkable Woman Who Mapped the Ocean Floor

by Hali Felt (Goodreads Author)

3.42 of 5 stars 3.42 · rating details · 69 ratings · 30 reviews

Her maps of the ocean floor have been called "one of the most remarkable achievements in modern cartography", yet no one knows her name.

Soundings is the story of the enigmatic, unknown woman behind one of the greatest achievements of the 20th century.Before Marie Tharp, geologist and gifted draftsperson, the whole world, including most of the scientific community, thought...more Her maps of the ocean floor have been called "one of the most remarkable achievements in modern cartography", yet no one knows her name.

Soundings is the story of the enigmatic, unknown woman behind one of the greatest achievements of the 20th century. Before Marie Tharp, geologist and gifted draftsperson, the whole world, including most of the scientific community, thought the ocean floor was a vast expanse of nothingness. In 1948, at age 28, Marie walked into the newly formed geophysical lab at Columbia University and practically demanded a job. The scientists at the lab were all male; the women who worked there were relegated to secretary or assistant. Through sheer willpower and obstinacy, Marie was given the job of interpreting the soundings (records of sonar pings measuring the ocean's depths) brought back from the ocean-going expeditions of her male colleagues. The marriage of artistry and science behind her analysis of this dry data gave birth to a major work: the first comprehensive map of the ocean floor, which laid the groundwork for proving the then-controversial theory of continental drift.

When combined, Marie's scientific knowledge, her eye for detail and her skill as an artist revealed not a vast empty plane, but an entire world of mountains and volcanoes, ridges and rifts, and a gateway to the past that allowed scientists the means to imagine how the continents and the oceans had been created over time.

Just as Marie dedicated more than twenty years of her professional life to what became the Lamont Geological Observatory, engaged in the task of mapping every ocean on Earth, she dedicated her personal life to her great friendship with her co-worker, Bruce Heezen. Partners in work and in many ways, partners in life, Marie and Bruce were devoted to one another as they rose to greater and greater prominence in the scientific community, only to be envied and finally dismissed by their beloved institute. They went on together, refining and perfecting their work and contributing not only to humanity’s vision of the ocean floor, but to the way subsequent generations would view the Earth as a whole.

With an imagination as intuitive as Marie's, brilliant young writer Hali Felt brings to vivid life the story of the pioneering scientist whose work became the basis for the work of others scientists for generations to come.(less)

Hardcover, 352 pages

Published July 17th 2012 by Henry Holt and Co.

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Apr 22, 2013 Judy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: bio-memoir, 2013-reads, non-fiction, science

Soundings: The Story of the Remarkable Woman Who Mapped the Ocean Floor falls into the mixed-bag category for me. I'm happy that Marie Tharp receives some of the credit due her for mapping the ocean floor since very little came her way until late in her life.

How Marie even came to map the ocean floor could be considered almost accidental. Fortunately, for her she had added a drafting course to her geology studies. When she made a call on "Doc" Ewing, director of the new geophysics program at Ca...more Soundings: The Story of the Remarkable Woman Who Mapped the Ocean Floor falls into the mixed-bag category for me. I'm happy that Marie Tharp receives some of the credit due her for mapping the ocean floor since very little came her way until late in her life.

How Marie even came to map the ocean floor could be considered almost accidental. Fortunately, for her she had added a drafting course to her geology studies. When she made a call on "Doc" Ewing, director of the new geophysics program at Cambridge University, it was only based on hearsay that he may be hiring. "Doc" did hire Marie but relegated her to an assistants position even though her education was better than many male staff members. Marie had a Masters degree, most of them didn't. Regardless of discrimination, Marie made the most of her experience and became the first person to map the ocean floor in its entirety. Hers is a story worth knowing.

The issues I have with this book center around what feels like a lack of material. Marie was a reticent person in regards to her feelings so little is known about her relationship with her boss and co-worker, Bruce Heezen. There aren't a lot of direct quotes from Marie, but more speculation about what she thought/felt about incidents in her life. Although I'm pretty sure the author mentions meeting Marie, I don't recall her saying that any of the information given in this book came from interviews with Marie, but instead interviews that others had done appear to be the source. For this reason, the book felt shallow to me. It seemed a sifting and re-working of other people's work. While reading it, I wondered if it wouldn't have been better suited to be one segment in a book about women scientists of the period. Or if a stand-alone book, if having a geophysicist co-author the book and add a deeper level of science to it wouldn't have helped. But regardless, I hope no one that reads this review thinks that the book isn't worth reading, because it is. Marie Tharp displayed qualities of independence, courage and a willingness to be herself that are worth emulating. I'm glad I received the opportunity to make her acquaintance through this book.

3 stars

Come by and visit My Blog for more about this book. Visitors welcome anytime!(less)

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Sep 11, 2012 Tasha rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: giveaways, non-fic

A decent book but not my 'type'. I am glad that someone has given this woman, Marie Tharp, a voice and she now gets the recognition due her. The writing was a bit irksome at times as the author puts in her own ideas of what happened in some scenes and dialogue. Felt does admit this in the intro so it is not a surprise and it is due to the fact that she did not actually have anyone to interview, all her information is gathered second hand. So, while I understand her dilemma and her attempts to wo...more

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Jul 18, 2012 Paul Mcfarland rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is the latest in a number of long overdue books that recognize the women who, assisted in, shared in, or in many cases made, fundamental scientific discoveries.

Marie Tharp devoted her life to the study of the ocean floor. A region that was less understood than the face of the moon. She took strings of data obtained from scores of observations by vessels of many nations and put them together into a map. The ability to see this data at a glance on a map changed geology forever. The current u...more

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Jul 29, 2012 Will rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, the-wild-world

A new addition to one of my favorite unofficial sub-genres of nonfiction--chronicles of obsessions--as well as a fresh, if problematic, take on biography and science writing, Soundings tells the story of a important, neglected, hard-driving woman who changed the way the world's population conceptualizes the planet we all live on.

Felt reverses many of her precursors' treatment of the particular scientific moment that oceanographic cartographer Marie Tharp was most productive: She reinserts Tharp...more

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Aug 04, 2012 Anne rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

I really liked this book. Besides shedding light on an overlooked woman scientist and the ocean and its floor, the style of the book really drew me in. The author is candid about what is unknown about Marie Tharp and the ocean floor. She writes in a wonderfully engaging way (although I can imagine that this type of writing may not be for everyone).

An improvised discussion between Marie and Bruce:
"In fact, she's kind of disappointed that all these exciting data have only inspired Bruce to think...more I really liked this book. Besides shedding light on an overlooked woman scientist and the ocean and its floor, the style of the book really drew me in. The author is candid about what is unknown about Marie Tharp and the ocean floor. She writes in a wonderfully engaging way (although I can imagine that this type of writing may not be for everyone).

An improvised discussion between Marie and Bruce:
"In fact, she's kind of disappointed that all these exciting data have only inspired Bruce to think of what's already been hinted at. Slow declines and great big saucers of mud? A vast area of land with all the topographical character of the Midwest? That's it, she asks. She wrinkles her brow and taps her pencil fast against the tabletop. They're about equals, educationally speaking -- Bruce has just finished his master's degree in geology, earned hers four years ago. Don't you think it's probably a little more exciting down there? Bruce scowls. Well, he ask, what you do think is there? This is the first and quite possibly, tamest of what will become a very long line of disagreements." p. 95

On Marie and Bruce's first trip to Iceland:
"They're all eyes, translating. Things from their everyday lives are rendered fantastic, huge or tiny, it's hard to tell, mundane objects carousing with features that belong on the ocean floor. The grass is so green, it's chartreuse, the faraway uneven patches scaled down to lichen size and creeping over stones. Stands of pines like fuzzy tufts of moss. Solid streams of 3000-year-old lava. Steaming hot springs resemble ladles of consomme. Volcanic cones have nearly perfect circles scooped out of their tops -- some with glassy turquoise water pooled in their depressions, some dented with fedoras and covered with plants. A glacial lagoon is a punch bowl scattered with floating chunks of ice. Beehive-shaped hornitos, which form when lava is forced up through the cooling surface of a flow, accumulate vertically around a hollow center. Boulders piled against seaside cliffs like marbles in a cigar box. Cave openings like belly buttons. Look at that, Marie says over and over again, without turning to look at him. I know, he says, knowing just what she wants him to photograph." p. 143

Interesting (and depressing) insights about scientific/academic in-squabbling.

Where ocean floor exploration is today:
"Despite the new technologies, we haven't moved much past the starting point. Even today, only about 10% of the ocean floor has been surveyed using multibeam sonar; in other words, only about 10% of the ocean floor has been studied in any detail. This lack of information about the ocean floor means that scientists have mapped Venus, the Earth's moon, and Mars in more detail... We know less, period, about our own planet than we do about those places." p.297

The author's statement preceding her notes section includes this paragraph. I think it gives the feeling about how passionately the author felt about her subject and her approach to the book:
"As I wrote this book I tried to imagine that I was writing a very long letter to Marie. It always was a strange letter, though. Or maybe not: when I think about how this book is at once to Marie, about Marie, for Marie -- and sometimes even, in a way, by Marie -- I think it might just be a love letter, the boundary between author and subject gone fluid. So here's an appendix I think you would have appreciated, Marie, the resources you left behind mingling with those I discovered on my own." p. 303
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Dec 07, 2012 Dianne rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: science

A quick browse through this fascinating story last night - another brillian woman of science whom we should all know. The author discovered the story of Marie Tharp while reading the wonderful end-of-year NYT obit magazine. Marie created the first complete map of our oceans' floor during the 20 years from 1948 - 1968, working with colleague and lover Bruce Heezen in the Lamont Geological Observatory at Columbia U. A quote: "When combined, Marie's scientific knowledge, her eye for detail, and her...more

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Oct 05, 2012 Holly rated it 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book!
If you are interested in exploring the history of women in science, and the changes in scientific thought over the last century, then this book is worthy of your time. Hali Felt brings Marie Tharp and her partner, Bruce Heezen to life. The biography paints a picture of a unique and remarkable person, how she came to be, and her accomplishments before the digital age, when a woman was not invited, or acknowledged, in the scientific community.
http://mapprinter.wordpress.com/2012/...more

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Oct 15, 2012 Holly rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012-reads, some-recent-favorites

What an exciting book for me. Hali Felt has written a very personal biography of Marie Tharp (it's about the writer's obsessions almost as much as Tharp and continental drift and plate tectonics and academic careers and women's neglected contributions to science). All biographers imagine themselves into their subject's life, I think, Felt just does this more honestly and unabashedly, asking her readers to indulge her, to patiently ride out her imaginings - because they help tell the story. The R...more

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Oct 23, 2012 Annette rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, science, biography, woman, women-s, studies, ocean, floor, sonar, mapping, geomorphologists, cartographers, submarine, topography

Soundings: The Story of the Remarkable Woman Who Mapped the Ocean Floor by Hali Felt examines the life of Marie Tharp. As a fan of biographies and particular books about women, I found this book to be an excellent addition to my biography collection.[return][return]The book traces her life and accomplishments including her foundational work in oceanographic cartography. While most biographies focus primarily on the life of the subject, the author chose to weave in the science behind the story to...more

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Feb 06, 2013 Leigh Newman rated it 4 of 5 stars

At age 28, geologist Marie Tharpe began work at Columbia University as an assistant (read: glorified secretary). By the end of her tenure there in 1982, she and her colleague Bruce Heezen had mapped the ocean floor using sonar readings and, in the process, identified "the world-girdling rift valley" that laid the foundation for proving the theory of plate tectonics. Part race-to-the-finish tale of 20th-century scientific discovery and part unconventional romance of Tharpe and Heezen, Soundings m...more

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Sep 29, 2012 Debbie rated it 4 of 5 stars

What a great study of a woman who painstakingly mapped the known ocean floor using the current depth soundings from all over the world.
Hali Felt interjects her own thoughts to add smotions to this story, however it works because Marie Tharp is such an elusive and eccentric person.
Marie's lifelong love affair with her partner Bruce Heezen and her work was a study of a woman born before her time.
The Harrassment that both Marie and Bruce experienced from Lamont was especially poignant given there w...more

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Aug 06, 2012 Jacki rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult-nonfiction, memoir, shelf-awareness

*Check out http://www.infinitereads.com for other reviews and sundry thoughts!*

Biography readers who love discovering stories of fascinating, historically important figures should rush to find a copy of Soundings, Hali Felt's astute reconstruction of the life of Marie Tharp.

In 1948, when Marie Tharp went to work as a draftsperson at Columbia University's Lamont Geological Observatory, scientists viewed advocates of continental drift with the sort of skepticism usually reserved for UFO sightings...more *Check out http://www.infinitereads.com for other reviews and sundry thoughts!*

Biography readers who love discovering stories of fascinating, historically important figures should rush to find a copy of Soundings, Hali Felt's astute reconstruction of the life of Marie Tharp.

In 1948, when Marie Tharp went to work as a draftsperson at Columbia University's Lamont Geological Observatory, scientists viewed advocates of continental drift with the sort of skepticism usually reserved for UFO sightings. No one believed, or even wanted to believe, that Earth's continents were moving. At that time, the Lamont Observatory owned the largest collection of oceanic data in the world, including the records of soundings, a procedure that measures oceanic depth. Tharp, brilliant and independent in a society that valued neither quality in its women, came to work at Lamont having already fought a hard battle for an education in the sciences and a career. Barred from fieldwork due to her gender and relegated to drafting maps under men her junior in both age and education, Tharp nonetheless made a startling contribution to the world of earth sciences. While interpreting soundings into oceanic cartography, Tharp discovered the Mid-Oceanic Ridges, an underwater mountain range that proved the theory of continental drift to an astonished scientific community.

Felt writes much as early oceanic cartographers worked, attempting to sound the depths of Tharp's life and create a detailed picture from cold data. While historical accounts show Tharp as a self-contained and outwardly unemotional woman, the topography of her life contained mountains and valleys created by the impact of her mother's early death, her fight for acceptance in a man's world and her unorthodox relationship with Bruce Nezeen, her partner and lover, whose power struggle with Lamont's administration would turn Tharp's career into a bargaining chip. Tharp's private nature leaves Felt with a skeleton of facts she fleshes out both by using her finely tuned intuition and by encouraging the reader's sympathy and imagination.

Felt's skill revives Marie Tharp, finding the shape of an intelligent, passionate woman's personality, the political machinations of the Cold War scientific community and an underwater world where "steaming hot springs resemble ladles of consommé." Felt re-creates scenes as though they were movie montages, depicting Tharp's race to produce a map of the Indian Ocean for the scientific community. While she takes a necessary amount of poetic license, Felt's mission is not to embroider or alter Tharp's essence, but to discover it, and she succeeds in this powerful portrait of a woman so driven that society could not stop her from changing the world.

***This review originally appeared in Shelf Awareness Readers Edition. Sign up for this free and awesome newsletter at http://www.shelf-awareness.com for the latest news and reviews! This review refers to an ARC provided by Shelf Awareness.***
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Apr 07, 2013 Nancy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography, historical, natural-history-biology, nonfiction

Marie Tharp's life story is worth telling, and the author does so well, consciously using literary techniques parallel to those Marie used to create the first scientific maps of the ocean floor that supported the new theory of plate tectonics--extrapolate to fill in unknown areas based upon what seems reasonable. A social misfit, Marie Tharp made a huge impact on science and ended her life with devoted "Tharpophiles" surrounding her. She loved her science and her partner in life and research; he...more

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Aug 01, 2012 Elly Sands rated it 4 of 5 stars

I wanted to read this book because I know minimal about the ocean let alone it's floor! I learned a lot! I was afraid the book might be too dry but the author did a wonderful job creating a story around this woman, Marie Tharp. An intelligent, eccentric, dedicated woman passionate about map making. She loved creating maps even of her own home. It's a shame she was not given the attention she deserved in being the first person to create a map of the ocean floor but she was honored later in life....more

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Mar 27, 2013 Melanie rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book. Felt's writing style is engaging and she does an excellent job of bringing the characters in the story- including the inanimate "characters" (the maps!) to life. Marie Tharp deserves to be rescued from obscurity, and Hali Felt has done a good job of doing that.

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Feb 10, 2013 Suzana rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this biography of Marie Tharp. She was a pioneer in geology and one of the first female scientists at Lamont, who lived in South Nyack. The mixture of the familiar (Lamont, Columbia, Nyack) and the historical background of her life and these institutions made it a fascinating read.

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Nov 05, 2012 Sarah rated it 2 of 5 stars

Read this book for book club and really wanted to like it. We all thought we were going to like it, but no one really did. Conversational tone is weird with all the scientific information, and the pseudo-fiction parts are meh.

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Mar 02, 2013 Nancy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Hali Felt did an amazing job in research on Marie Tharp and her contribution to our knowledge of our oceans, her personal life,and her relationships with her mostly male colleagues,who did not often give her the credit she deserved.Interesting commentary on the politics and academic restraints that woman faced in the early and mid 20th century even as they were just as educated and knowledgeable as the men they worked with.A great read!

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Sep 24, 2012 Correen rated it 2 of 5 stars

The subject, Marie Tharp, was very interesting -- she mapped the ocean floor and never was given adequate credit for her work. It is the kind of story that could be the stuff of a great book. Too bad it was not.

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Nov 27, 2012 Madalene rated it 3 of 5 stars

A good memoir to read if you are struggling with the politics of grad school in the sciences. I'm glad her life is memorialized, though it reads too much in the first person for my taste.

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Apr 16, 2013 Tommy Owens rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: kindle

It's good to see Marie Tharp get broader recognition for her contribution to our knowledge of the ocean floor. The author's writing is somewhat disorganized. I crossed from the end of the text into the 'Notes' section without immediately noticing the difference.

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Dec 31, 2012 Laurie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: science

An interesting account of how the Mid-Ocean Ridge and other ocean floors were mapped.

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May 14, 2013 Treva Morath rated it 3 of 5 stars

Good story, but didn't like the writing style.

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Jun 13, 2012 Jenn marked it as to-read

Shelves: firstreads

Excited about this!

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Apr 22, 2013 Mills College Library added it

Shelves: april-2013, weekly-04-19-2013

Biog T3676f 2012

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Jan 23, 2013 Julie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Fascinating read! The book has no illustrations, but I found the images online, and thrilled at how impressive they must have been in their day. Some of the images are still with me, days later. Plan to share this with the ocean-loving hubby, despite its lack of obvious good guys and bad guys :)

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Feb 19, 2013 Alice rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoirs-biography, women-in-science

Great book about Marie Tharp who mapped the ocean floor. We have her to thank for the maps of the ocean floor. I especially enjoyed it as a woman in science and reading about her; how she is still relatively unknown. Very similar to Rosalind Franklin's story on DNA.

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Mar 02, 2013 Julie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: biography-and-memoir

Interesting story, but the author chose to present masses of data and detail at the expense of keeping my interest. DNF, not because I wanted to not finish, but rather because the fiction I was reading was so much more gripping

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Oct 22, 2012 Leanne rated it 5 of 5 stars

Excellent book!

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May 21, 2013 Aaron marked it as to-read

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About Hali Felt

Hali Felt teaches writing at the University of Pittsburgh. She received her MFA from the University of Iowa and has completed residencies at the MacDowell Colony, the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology, and Portland Writers in the Schools. In the past, she has reported for the Columbia Journalism Review and the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. She currently lives in Pittsburgh.

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