Solving The Puzzle Under The Sea by Robert Burleigh

Marie Tharp was a geologist/mathematician/oceanographic cartographer who made a significant contribution to geology and our knowledge of the oceans. Born in 1920, in Ypsilanti, Michigan, Marie spent her childhood accompanying her father who was a soil surveyor for the United States Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Chemistry and Soils. Her father's work meant much travel and changing schools frequently. In fact, Marie moved some thirty times before she was fifteen. But this travel meant that Marie saw many different landscapes and geography. Marie's father told her, "When you find your life's work, make sure it is something you can do, and most important, something you like to do."

Unsure of just what she wanted to do, Marie decided to study literature at Ohio University. Her first choice, St. John's College in Annapolis did not admit women in the late 1930's. She graduated with a degree in English and music in 1943 from Ohio University.


Wartime meant that professions previously filled by men only were now becoming more open to women. One of those professions was geology. Marie had taken a course in geology during her undergraduate years at Ohio. Looking for something more challenging, she accepted an offer to enter the masters petroleum geology program at the University of Michigan.

Marie worked as a petroleum geologist for Standard Oil and Gas in Tulsa, OK but eventually left because the work was unrewarding. She returned to school, obtaining a degree in Mathematics from the University of Tulsa.

Seeking more fulfilling and challenging work, Marie began working at Columbia University in 1948 as a research assistant to Dr. Maurice "Doc" Ewing. Marie worked at what is now called the Lamont Geological Laboratory. Her job was to help his graduate assistants, one of whom was Bruce Charles Heezen. Heezen had begun mapping the ocean floor in 1947.

At this time, priority was given to mapping the sea floor using sonar soundings because the military thought submarine warfare might be the next threat. Unfortunately, at this time, because she was a woman, Marie Tharp was not allowed onto the navy vessels doing the mapping. Instead, she worked in the lab plotting the sonar soundings by hand. Marie's educational background proved to be of considerable value because her work required a knowledge of both geology and mathematics. She organized the sonar data and converted it into maps and profiles of the sea floor. Later on this work would be done by computers but in the 1950's it was done by Marie Tharp.

Tharp and Heezen's map of the ocean floor.

Gradually a profile of the ocean floor began to appear and it was unlike anything anyone had imagined. Instead of a flat expansive ocean floor, Tharp's maps showed ridges and valleys. In fact, the ocean profile of the North Atlantic suggested a rift running essentially through the middle of the ocean between North America and Europe which Marie thought might be similar to the rift valley found in Africa.

In 1915 Alfred Wegener had published his theory that all the continents were once part of a giant landmass which he called Pangaea. He based his idea on the fact that fossils, strata and landmasses were similar between the continents and that the landmasses seemed to fit together. The theory was roundly ridiculed partly because Wegener's mechanism for continental drift was wrong and because scientists did not have enough knowledge at this time about the sea floor or subsurface geology.

Armed with this knew perspective of the ocean floor, Tharp suspected that this ridge was where the continents were moving apart - in other words it seemed to support Wegener's idea of drifting continents - the theory of plate tectonics. Eventually mounting evidence in the form of earthquakes along the rift zone validated Marie Tharp's theory and her maps became one of the supports for plate tectonics.

Marie Tharp went on to have a stellar career at Lamont-Doherty. She and colleague Heezen continued to map the entire ocean floor and produced a comprehensive map in 1977. Eventually her contributions to geology and oceanography were recognized but not until she was much older. Tharp passed away in 2006.

One of Raul Colon's beautiful illustrations.

Solving the Puzzle Under The Sea tells Marie Tharp's story from her perspective, using a first person narrative. Burleigh's text captures Marie's interest in the world around her as a young person, her struggles to be taken seriously as a woman scientist and the sense of discovery and accomplishment as she creates her maps of the ocean and makes an astonishing proposal - one that  forever changes how we view our planet.

Raul Colon's realistic illustrations rendered in watercolors, Prismacolor pencils and lithograph pencils on Arches paper, accompany Marie's narrative. Marie Tharp's story, told in this attractive picture book format serves as a reminder to young girls that a career in science is both attainable and rewarding.

Burleigh includes a detailed biography at the back as well as a list of words and their definitions as well as a bibliography and a section titled "Things To Wonder About and Do" which encourages young readers to explore the world around them.

Solving The Puzzle Under The Sea is well-written, sumptuously illustrated and a must-read for those young readers interested in learning about the women who have gone before in the world of science, and for teachers, librarians and parents wishing to encourage a career in science.

Book Details:

Solving The Puzzle Under The Sea by Robert Burleigh
New York: Simon and Schuster Books For Young Readers     2016

 map credit: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/06/08/images/HeezenTharp_900.jpg

Look Up! by Robert Burleigh

Over one hundred years ago, a woman astronomer named Henrietta Swan Leavitt made a remarkable discovery that changed forever how astronomers viewed the universe. For her breakthrough, Henrietta Leavitt received absolutely no recognition. It was a discovery that other astronomers such as Ejinar Hertzsprung and Edwin Hubble would use in their own research. In fact, Hubble never credited Leavitt's previous work as a significant factor in his own research. Recognition for Leavitt's outstanding contributions to astronomy would come after her death in 1921. In Look Up!, Robert Burleigh tells Henrietta Leavitt's story for a new generation of young girls, inspiring them to follow their interest in science.

Henrietta Swan Leavitt was born in Massachusetts on July 14, 1868. She was an intelligent, hard-working student, attending Oberlin College and then the Society for Collegiate Instruction of Women, which was eventually renamed Radcliffe College. At Radcliffe, Henrietta received an intensive education that if she were a man, would have led to a career in academia. However, in the late 19th century, such a possibility was not open to young, intelligent, well educated women.

In 1892, in her senior year at Radcliffe, Henrietta discovered astronomy. In 1893, after graduation, Henrietta  joined the Harvard College Observatory as an unpaid volunteer where she became a "Harvard computer" under the direction of astronomer Edward Pickering. Despite her rigorous education this was the only type of job available to educated young women. Henrietta was forced to leave due to a serious illness that left her profoundly deaf. She eventually returned to the Observatory in 1902. Her job, at a pay of 30 cents, was to catalogue the brightness of stars.

The 'Harvard computers' was a group of over eighty women who came to be collectively known in scientific circles as 'Pickering's Harem', a somewhat demeaning reference. The Harvard Computers included many brilliant women who would come to make outstanding contributions to the field of astronomy. These included Williamina Fleming who discovered the Horsehead Nebula in 1888, Annie Jump Cannon who helped catalogue over one million stars, Margaret Harwood who was later to become the first woman director of the Maria Mitchell Observatory, and Cecilia Payne who discovered that the Sun was comprised mainly of hydrogen.

Leavitt's job was to look at variable stars, so named because their luminosity changes over time in a regular pattern known as a period.  She was working with Cepheid stars in the Magellanic Clouds (two dwarf galaxies near the Milky Way). Henrietta discovered by mathematical calculation and detailed observation of these Cepheid variable stars that there is a direct correlation between how bright a star is (called the star's magnitude) and the length of time it goes from dim to peak brightness (its period of luminosity). In other words, brighter stars had larger periods of luminosity. This became known at the period-luminosity relationship or Leavitt's Law. Since the Cepheid stars are all about the same distance from Earth, their period is directly related to the magnitude, not distance. Using magnitude, one can determine their distance from Earth. Henrietta did this, not by telescope which she was not, as a woman, allowed to use, but by examining photographic plates. She published her results in 1912 in the form of a chart that allowed astronomers to determine very accurately the distance of stars from Earth and the distance between stars. Astronomers would even be able to attempt to calculate how large the universe is.

Unfortunately Henrietta Leavitt never received the recognition she deserved for this discovery which immediately set off a chain of amazing discoveries in the field of astronomy. At the time, the universe was believed to contain only the Milky Way galaxy but working from Henrietta's discovery, astronomers quickly learned the vastness of the cosmos. She was under consideration to be nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1925 but this was too little too late. She had passed away four years earlier. Even one hundred years after her amazing discovery, little has been done to commemorate her outstanding contribution to astronomy.

Discussion

Look Up! tells Henrietta Leavitt's story for young readers, capturing many of the crucial points of her life. Burleigh does a good job of attempting to explain exactly what Henrietta discovered and its significance to the discipline of astronomy. Raul Colon's exquisite illustrations are "rendered in watercolors, Prismacolor pencils and lithograph pencils on Arches paper."  They add a lovely visual dimension to this beautiful picture book, as they should, enhancing Burleigh's simple text.

Look Up! is a must-have book for any library or school wishing to promote the hidden accomplishments of women scientists to young girl readers.  Burleigh has included an Afterword that tells a bit about Henrietta Leavitt, a Glossary of Terms, and a list of resources, both online and print for learning more about the stars, telescopes, planets and the solar system. Although there is a small portrait of Henrietta Leavitt , it would have been wonderful to see more photographs of her included in the Afterword.

Image credit: https://scientificwomen.net/women/leavitt-henrietta-55

Book Details:

Look Up! by Robert Burleigh
New York: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers 2013