Subsequently, in collaboration with the Austrian landscape painter Heinrich Berann, Tharp and Heezen realized their map of the entire ocean floor, which was published in 1977 by National Geographic under the title of The World Ocean Floor. [9]

Yet Tharp's name isn't on any of the key papers that Heezen and others published about plate tectonics between 1959–1963, which brought this once-controversial idea to the mainstream of earth sciences. ^ Lawrence, David M. (2002). Upheaval from the abyss : ocean floor mapping and the Earth science revolution. Rutgers University Press.

Tharp's discovery of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge caused a paradigm shift in earth science that led to acceptance of the theories of plate tectonics and continental drift. [3] [4] [5]