Wow, if you follow a link from there, you get Tharp's own very entertaining account of her work. "Bruce" is her boss, who at first refused to accept that the rift was there, and then that it was evidence of continental drift. He got all the scientific credit for eventually believing what she was saying.

The reaction in the scientific community ranged from amazement to skepticism to scorn.In 1957 Bruce gave a talk on the mid-ocean rift system at Princeton, bringing along a globe we made that showed how the rift system extended all around the world. After the talk, the eminent Princeton geologist Harry Hess, who later developed the theory of seafloor spreading, stood up and said, “Young man, you have shaken the foundations of geology!” The discovery of the mid-ocean ridge system was a revelation, but nobody could explain how it got there.

Bruce believed the rift was a tensional crack caused by the splitting of the Earth’s crust.He still did not believe in continental drift. It was very hard to go in the direction of that theory when the boss, Doc, like nearly everyone else in the scientific world, was violently opposed to drift.I was so busy making maps I let them argue. I figured I’d show them a picture of where the rift valley was and where it pulled apart.

So many years later and this industry still hates women… unless you’re hot and the men like looking at you enough that you’re allowed to tag along.