Physiographic Diagram of the South Atlantic Ocean

Huge original physiographic map of the South Atlantic Ocean, created by pioneers of oceanographic cartography Marie Tharp and Bruce Heezen. Tharp and Heezen begun their cooperation in early 1950's. Heezen was collecting bathymetric data aboard the research ship and Tharp drew maps from that data. Tharp's meticulous maps of the ocean floor overlaid with maps of undersea volcanic activity lead to the acceptance of the theory of continental drift, although it was reportedly initially dismissed as 'girl talk' by Heezen.

Interestingly, U.S. government forbade publishing of the ocean floor maps during the cold war, fearing that Soviet submarines could use them.

The map belongs to a series of several large scale oceanographic maps along with Physiographic diagram of the North Atlantic ocean (1957), Physiographic diagram of the Indian ocean (1967) and Physiographic Diagram of the Western Pacific Ocean (1971). On all three maps from the series, Heezen's name was always written first, although Tharp was later credited for most of the cartographic work.