Download File - Bowie Aquatic Science

History of Ocean
Exploration
A timeline of contributions
Something to consider…
• Think back to the beginning of
humanity.
• Think of all possible reasons why
humans would start exploring the
oceans (Think about why we do so
today).
~25,000 yrs ago - Polynesians
• Polynesians began
colonizing Pacific
(Samoa, Hawaii…)
by knowledge of
waves, bird flight,
stars, smell of
water, temp,
salinity, color, and
marine life
Photos courtesy of the Polynesian Culture
Center
~1000 BC – Greeks
• Homer and Plato
mention sponge
fisherman diving up to
100 feet for sponges
• How?
– With “skandaloptera”
– Oil in their ears
Image courtesy of Sandra Hendrikse and
André Merks
~300 BC - Greeks
• inverted kettles
trapped air to dive
for sponges
Alexander the Great Diving Photo courtesy
of NOAA
~300 BC - Aristotle
• 1st marine biologist
• “Father of natural history”
• He identified a variety of
marine species such as
crustaceans,
echinoderms, mollusks,
fish and mammals
• Identified differences
between oviparous and
viviparous
The School of Athens by Raffaello Sanzio 1509,
showing Plato (left) and Aristotle (right)
~200 BC – More Greeks
• Eratosthenes, greek
astronomer, used distance
between Alexandria and
Syene and angles of
shadows to determine the
circumference of the earth
• His calculation: 40,000 km
• Actual: 40,032 km
Courtesy of NOAA Ocean Education Service
800-1000 A.D. Viking Exploration
• 15- 30 m ships of oak
powered by sails and oars
• First to use the North Star
to determine latitude
• Explored and colonized
Greenland and Iceland
• Leif Erikson reached
North America 500 years
before Columbus and
establishes what is today
Newfoundland
~1400-1600 - Renaissance
• 1492 Columbus
“discovers” America
• 1519 Ferdinand
Magellan is the first
to circumnavigate the
world and contributed
to charting the
oceans
Map courtesy of Encyclopedia Britannica
1690 – Edmund Halley (U.K.)
• diving bell takes
divers 50 feet
underwater
• Suggested that the
age of the oceans
could be determined
by the rate at which
rivers carry salt to the
ocean
Photo courtesy of National Maritime
Museum, London
Mid-1700’s: Captain James Cook /
Benjamin Franklin
• Cook: Observations led to
the discovery that vitamin
C prevents scurvy and
mapped islands in the
South Pacific.
• Franklin: noticed that mail
delivery from Europe to the
colonies took longer than
mail from the colonies to
Europe. Learned of a
water current that moved
up the coast from the Gulf
of Mexico (Gulf Stream).
1800 – Robert Fulton (U.S.)
• Submarine
Nautilus tested in
France
• Propelled by a
handcranked
screw propeller
• His rudder system
is still in use today
Photo courtesy of National Maritime
Museum, London
1831-36 – Voyage of the Beagle
• Naturalist Charles
Darwin sailed around
the world on HMS
Beagle
• Spent 8 years
working on barnacles
which brought about
his theory of
evolution by natural
selection and his
book the Origin of
Species
Map courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
1872-1876 – Challenger expedition
• 1st expedition to
collect oceanic
species from
around the world
• Beginning of
modern
oceanography
Map courtesy of TAMU
Challenger contributions
• Water samples
• Sediment samples
• Recorded temperature and pressure at varying
depths
• Discovered, described and catalogued 4,700
new species of marine organisms
• Collected data on tides, currents, and wave
action
• Director: Sir Charles Thompson “ founder of
oceanography”
1914 – Reginald Fessenden (Canada)
• First acoustic exploration
of the sea floor
• Allowed submarines and
boats to detect icebergs
• Titanic sank in 1912;
which spurred this
research
• Lead to development of
sonar
1930 – Barton and Beebe (U.S.)
• Otis Barton
designed the
bathysphere, and
with naturalist Dr.
William Beebe
dove 1428 feet
near Bermuda
Photo courtesy of Wildlife Conservation Society
1943 – Jacques-Yves Cousteau
(France)
• Cousteau improved
the aqualung and
invented modern
scuba (self-contained
underwater breathing
apparatus)
• Marine
conservationist
Photo courtesy of NOAA
1960 – Jacques Piccard (Switzerland)
• Piccard designed
the bathyscaphe
Trieste, and with
Lt. Don Walsh,
reached the
deepest point in
the ocean, 35,800
feet in the Mariana
Trench
Photo courtesy of National Maritime Museum, London
Map courtesy of NOAA
1977 – Alvin
• Built in 1964
• Discovery of
hydrothermal
vents in 1977
Photo courtesy of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute
http://www.whoi.edu/home/interactive/alvin/
1979 – Dr. Sylvia Earle (U.S.)
• Dr. Earle, in a
JIM suit, rides
the submersible
Star II to the
seafloor near
Oahu, Hawaii
• New record:
1250 feet deep
for 2 ½ hours
Photo courtesy of Al Giddings Images, Inc
Photo courtesy of Al Giddings Images, Inc
1985 – DeepRover
• This single
person
submersible
was launched,
diving 3280
feet
Photo courtesy of Marine Technology Society
1999 – DeepWorker
• Can remain
submerged for 12
hours at 2000 ft
• Single person
submersible
allows for
exploration of
U.S. National
Marine
Sanctuaries
Robert “Bob” Ballard
• Most remembered for his
discoveries of old ship wrecks
of the RMS Titanic, Battleship
Bismarck, USS Yorktown and
most recently John F.
Kennedy’s PT109.
• He is a former commander in
the US Navy and is currently
a professor of oceanography
at the University of Rhode
Island
Today - Marine labs
• Scripps Institution of Oceanography
– La Jolla, CA (1912)
– http://www.sio.ucsd.edu/
• Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
– Woods Hole, MA (1930)
– http://www.whoi.edu/
- Virginia Institute of Marine Science
- Gloucester Point, VA (1940)
- http://www.vims.edu/
• Harte Research Institute
– Corpus Christi, TX (2000)
– http://www.harteresearchinstitute.org/
Bob Ballard
• Under water discovery Video
• After watching the video, you and a partner will answer
the following questions; will be turned in; read the
questions now so you can think about them throughout
the video
– Why do you think we haven’t explored the oceans
more in depth?
– What is the importance of exploring the oceans?
– In what way(s) do you think we’ve made a
sufficient progress throughout history of ocean
exploration?