Download History of Oceanography

History of
Oceanography
Why study historic
oceanography?
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Connected to the
world’s overall
history
– Commerce, warfare,
resources, weather
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The oceans have
shaped humanity’s
past
Why study Oceanographic
History?
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Understand how and why people apply
marine sciences today
Oceanography’s history is about
people, not just oceans and test tubes.
Ancient Uses and Explorations
(5000 B.C. to 800 A.D.)
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Not sure when ocean voyages actually
began
– Fish hooks and spears dated
approximately 5000 B.C.
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Earliest recorded sea voyage –
Egyptians about 3200 B.C.
Phoenician Explorations
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Most important early
Western seafarers
Motivated by trade,
Phoenicians traveled
incredible distances
Established first trade
routes throughout the
Mediterranean and as
far north as Great
Britain
Phoenician Navigation
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Stayed within sight of land
Traveled at night – steered by
observing constellations and the North
Star.
In the ancient world, the North Star
was called the Phoenician Star
Polynesian Exploration
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Between 2000 and 500 B.C.
Often traveled thousands of kilometers
across open ocean
Open canoes cut from tree trunks
Developed stick maps with ocean currents
Settled most of the islands in the Pacific
Ocean hundreds of years before Europeans
reached Pacific Ocean
Polynesian
Significance
 Earliest
known
regular, longdistance,
open-ocean
seafaring
beyond sight
of land
Greek Exploration
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First who used mathematical principles
and developed sophisticated maps for
seafaring
Pytheas – Greek explorer, noted that he
could predict tides in Atlantic based on
phases of moon
He also measured angle between
horizon and the North Star to determine
position – improved navigation
Eratosthenes
(264-194 B.C)
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2 major
contributions that
furthered Pytheas’
work
Calculated Earth’s
Circumference
~40,000 km
Invented first
latitude/longitude
system
Map of World – According
to Eratosthenes
Ptolemy
(100-168 A.D.)
Created map of Earth that showed a portion
of the Earth as a sphere on flat paper.
 Produced first world atlas
Improved longitude/latitude system
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– System still used today
Middle Ages
(800 A.D.-1400)
Vikings
(790 A.D. to 1100)
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Vikings of Scandinavia were active
explorers during The 9th century
Discovered Iceland and Greenland
Leif Eriksson – son of Eric The Red, set
off in search of timber for Greenland
Colony and discovered North America
(Newfoundland, Canada)
Chinese Exploration
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The Chinese Ming Dynasty sent large
convoys of ships out on missions in
which seven voyages were made
There ships were more technologically
advanced than anything in Europe,
consisting of five masts and magnetic
compasses and navigational charts
The Ming Dynasty reached as far as
Africa
European Exploration and
the Renaissance
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Prince Henry the navigator, (1420’s)
founded first school of navigation
Christopher Columbus (1490’s) was
attempting to find a west-ward route to
India when he reached the Bahama Islands
Ferdinand Magellan (1520) led the
expedition that first circumnavigated the
word; he was killed in the Philippines
Magellan’s
Circumnavigation of World
The Beginning
of Ocean
Science
18th Century
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Previous exploration driven by military,
trade, or conquest objectives
Royal Navy of Britain launched
voyages with objectives of exploration,
mapping and projecting British
presence around the world
Cook’s Expedition
(1768 – 1779)
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Made 1st accurate maps of many
regions in the ocean w/ new invention
Chronometer invented by John
Harrison
Chronometer is a time piece capable
of keeping accurate time aboard ship
at sea
Ben Franklin and the Gulf
Stream (1777)
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Noted northerly routed ship from Europe took
longer than ships that came by a longer more
southerly route
Learned about gulf stream from nephew, who
gave his uncle a chart
Franklin had the chart printed and distributed
to the captains of mail ships.
They shortened their inbound voyages by
avoiding the current and they shortened their
outbound voyages by using the current.
Father of Oceanography…
Matthew Maury
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Matthew Maury, in charge of the
Depot
of Naval charts and
instruments.
Organized first international
meteorological conference to establish
uniform methods
Published a summarized version of data
in first Oceanographic textbook in 1855
Darwin, Coral Reefs and
Biological Evolution
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From 1831 to 1836 a naturalist for the
HMS Beagle circumnavigated the
southern oceans and oceanic islands.
Darwin observed birds and other
organisms on isolated islands, most of
his research took place in the Galapagos
Islands.
In 1859, his observations were published
in the book “On the origin of Species”.
The Rosses, Edward Forbes,
and life in the deep sea
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John Ross took samples and animals in Baffin bay
(Canada) Later James Ross took samples from
Antarctic ocean bottom at 4.3 Miles
John Ross and James Ross found that there are
some bottom dwelling creatures in Baffin Bay and
Antarctic Ocean. They discovered that deep
Atlantic is uniformly cold.
Forbes – Oceans divided into life-depth zones;
concluded that ocean life decrease as depth
increases. This contrasted with Rosses finings and
created dispute for decades in Britain.
The Ocean as Laboratory :
The Challenger Expedition
(1872-1876)
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The expedition covered 79,178 miles.
Directed by C. Wyville Thompson
2 contributions:
– Discovery and classification of 4,717 new
marine species
– Measurement of record water depth at
the Mariana Trench of 26,847 feet.
Alexander Agassiz
(1836-1919)
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multimillionaire benefactor to
oceanography, especially in the U.S.
1st to use steel cables for deep sea
dredging
Victor Henson and Marine
Ecology
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Victor Henson solved the problem
about population fluctuations in
commercial fish.
Coined the term plankton
He found that cold water is more
nutrient rich, leading to more
plankton, and a larger fish population.
Polar oceanography begins
with the voyage of the Fram
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Fridtjof Nansen set out with a crew of
13 on a boat called Fram to explore
the Artic sea.
His boat became frozen in ice and
drifted for 3 years
His drift proved that there was no
continent in the Artic sea.
Twentieth
century
oceanography
Voyage of the Meteor
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First drilling ship
Ship came from Germany
Set the standard for multidisciplinary
studies of the Ocean
Mapped the ocean bottom by echo
sounding
Meteor sailed for 25 months
Oceanography gets
institutionalized
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Musée océanographic – Europe
Scripps institution of Oceanography (1st
institute in U.S.) – California
Woods Hole Ocean. Inst. (Boston)
Lamont Geological Observatory - New York
Rosenstiel school of Marine & Atmosphere
Sciences - Miami
Texas A&M University administered The
Ocean Drilling Program
SCRIPPS
Woods Hole
Lamont
The expansion of
oceanography
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German U-boat led to the invention of the
echo sounder to detect submarines
WW2_military performed and supported
many studies on transmission of sound in
the ocean waves, currents, and oceanfloor topography.
After WW2 U.S. government established a
Sea Grant program to fund ocean research
Large-scale and
international oceanographic
research
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The Deep Sea Drilling Project (DSDP) was
the 1st large-scale cooperative effort in
academic ocean research
The Glomar Challenger began 1st leg of
deep sea drilling
The deep sea drilling project became the
ocean drilling program (ODP)
The ODP drill ship JOIDES Resolution, which
is a lot larger than the Glomar Challenger,
conducted its first scientific cruise and the
JOIDES program continues today.
The history behind plate
tectonic theory
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In 1915, Alfred Wegener developed the theory of
continental drift.
– He conceived of a single ancient landmass called
Pangaea that began to break 180 million years
ago.
Fredrick Vine and Drummond Matthews provided
evidence for sea floor spreading in 1963
– They mapped magnetic patterns of the ocean
floor, which showed parallel bands of similarly
magnetized reaches on either side of oceanic
mountain ranges. Which were records of changes
in Earth’s magnetic field over time
Humans invade the deep
ocean
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Increased pressure on body cavities and gases
dissolved in body tissues limits duration of dives.
Decompressing is necessary at greater depths
because rapid ascending turns dissolved gases in
tissues into nitrogen. These nitrogen bubbles can
stop blood flow. This is know as the bends and is
extremely painful illness which can be fatal.
– To protect oneself, a strict decompression
schedule which includes stopping at different
depths
– Jim suit allows a person to repair machinery at
the ocean floor at surface pressure
Submersibles
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William Beebe- descended to a depth of
923 meters off Bermuda in a tethered
bathysphere to observe deep-sea life.
Jacques Piccard- designed untethered
vessel Trieste - 1960
Alvin, Sea Cliff- 2 most widely used
submersibles
Japan’s Shinkai- to study microbes in the
deep sea
Trieste (1960)
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The bathyscaphe,
Trieste, descends to
10,915 meters
Into Marianas
Trench
Deepest depth in
the ocean
Submersibles
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Factors of manned sub:
– Risk to human life
– High cost of the systems required
– Relatively short time that can be spent making
observations
Advantages of ROVs (remotely operated vehicles)
– No risk to humans
– Can make computer-assisted maps (based on sonar)
– Stay down in water for a long time
Autonomous Underwater Vehicles
– Programmed to carry out specific data gatherings
missions of long durations without human life
A.U.V.s
vs.
R.O.V.s
Living under the sea
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Jacques Cousteau- began designing and
testing the underwater living chamber in the
1950s
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In the 1970s teams lived undersea
chambers for up to 60 days
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May be placed on ocean floor or suspended
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Can respond and equalize to any pressure
Aquarius
Remote sensing
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Sometimes ocean is observed from space; they
can measure temp., ice cover, color, etc.
Seasat A - 1st dedicated oceanographic satellite.
Nimbus 7- mapped phyto-plankton populations
TOPEX/ Poseidon- mapped global sea level and
got data on ocean –atmosphere interaction.
Global Positioning system- allows ship to
determine positions with in a meter
SEASAT A
TOPEX / POSEIDON
Terms & Equipment
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Secchi disk-
Determines how transparency of
the water
Core Sampler- takes samples of core sediments
Hydrometer- Determines the density of the
water
Dredgescoops up marine life
Alvinfamous submarine that explored
deep sea
Terms & Equipment
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Side-scan sonar-
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Current meter-
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Underwater camera
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Flip-
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Purse seine net-
sonar that can scan in all
directions
determines the speed and
direction of the current
camera that can work
underwater
a bottle like vessel that
can flip sideways in the
water
used to capture schools
of fish