World War 2 technology allowed peacetime mapping of the sea floor, and throughout the 1950s and ’60s it became increasingly clear that the sea floor was neither flat nor featureless. Oceanographic cartographers Marie Tharp and Bruce Heezen painstakingly produced the most important map in the history of marine science: the 1977 World Ocean Floor Map. The Heezen and Tharp 1977 World Ocean Floor Map was distributed to millions of classrooms by National Geographic and transformed how we see the sea floor. But our oldest ancestors, the beginning of life itself, may have begun in the deepest dark corners of the sea. We can’t see or visit the deep-sea vents, but we know they are there, and we can protect them.

Source: Otago Daily Times October 11, 2020 14:26 UTC