The Woman Who Drew the Sea Floor
Written by Studio AM.
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In 1948, Marie Tharp took a job at a laboratory in New York that studied the ocean floor. She was a trained geologist and a skilled mapmaker. Women were excluded from the research ships, so she had to work from shore.
She used the depth measurements that the ships sent back. Bruce Heezen and others crossed the Atlantic, bouncing sound off the bottom and writing down how long each echo took to return. Tharp turned those columns of numbers into a picture of the sea floor, drawing by hand, profile by profile.
A shape kept appearing. Down the middle of the Atlantic ran a long range of mountains, and along the top of that range ran a narrow valley, like a crack. She said it looked like a rift, a place where the floor was being pulled apart. Heezen initially dismissed her interpretation.
Then earthquake locations were compared with the valley on her map. The two patterns followed the same line. This independent evidence helped persuade Heezen that her interpretation deserved serious attention.
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Questions
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Question 1 of 4
What is the passage mainly about?
The answer is D: Kept off the ships, Marie Tharp drew the sea floor from numbers and found a rift nobody had seen.
The passage joins the obstacle, the work she did instead, and what that work revealed. The other choices take one piece out of context.
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Question 2 of 4
According to the passage, why was Tharp not allowed on the research ships?
The answer is A: Women were excluded from those research ships.
The first paragraph identifies a restriction on women, despite Tharp's relevant training.
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Question 3 of 4
In this passage, a "rift" is
The answer is B: a place where something is being pulled apart
The passage defines it in the same sentence, right after the comma: a place where the floor was being pulled apart.
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Question 4 of 4
Why did the earthquake map change Heezen's mind?
The answer is D: Earthquake locations followed the valley where she proposed the floor was splitting.
The matching patterns supported the rift interpretation with evidence gathered independently of the depth measurements.
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