Hali Felt pays tribute to Marie Tharp while painting the story of her personal life through fictional interludes. Through her story telling and historical account of oceanography during mid-20th century, we see Marie weave together data to map the ocean floor.  Marie was not widely recognized for her work but committed her life to the work of mapping the ocean floor, a significant contribution to science and our understanding of the world today.

"Hali Felt's vividly written biography-with-creative-indulgences brings well-needed attention to Tharp's story. Soundings not only details its subject's monumental work and entanglements with gender bias but also exerts thoughtful pressure on the boundaries and biases of this literary genre…Soundings is an eloquent testament both to Tharp's importance and to Felt's powers of imagination." - The New York Times Book Review - Michael Washburn

“[Tharp] is the woman who mapped the ocean floor, forever changing scientific understanding of the planet. Ignored and marginalized for much of her career, Tharp has at last come into her own.” - Science News