Earth Science Oceanography

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Earth Science Oceanography
Water World
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Oceanography

• The application of science to the study of
  phenomena in the oceans.
• Oceanography is a broad Science

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4 Disciplines

• Geological Oceanography
• Structure of the sea floor
• Chemical Oceanography
• Chemical composition and properties of seawater
• Physical Oceanography
• Waves, tides, currents
• Biological Oceanography
• Oceanic life forms

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Why Study Oceanography?

• Oceans comprise 71 of the Earths surface
• Oceans contain 97.2 of the water on or near the
  Earths surface
• Source of Food
• Transportation and Travel
• Weather
• Shoreline
• Interface between land and ocean

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CLIMATE
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WEATHER
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Shoreline Waves Baby
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Food Marine Life
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The 5 Oceans

• Pacific Ocean
• Largest and deepest ocean
• Mariana Trench 11 km., 36,000 ft.
• (Mt. Everest 29,000 ft.)
• Atlantic Ocean
• About ½ the size of the Pacific
• Indian Ocean
• Southern hemisphere
• Arctic Ocean
• ¼ as deep, much smaller, sea ice
• Southern Ocean
• South of 50 deg. South latitude

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Just the Facts

• Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii, measures
  10,600 m from the ocean floor, making it the
  tallest mountain on the planet (surpassing even
  Mt. Everest).
• If the Earths contours were leveled to a smooth
  ball, the ocean would cover it to a depth of 2686
  m.

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Just the Facts

• The ocean contains some 5 trillion tons of salts
• If dried and spread evenly, that mass would cover
  the entire planet to a depth of 45 m.
• On a planetary scale the ocean is insignificant.
• Its average depth is a tiny fraction of the
  Earths radius.

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Historical Reviewof Oceanography

• Roots traced to ocean exploration.
• Describing the oceans

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Herodotus (ca 450 BCE) Where is . ?
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Historical Reviewof Oceanography

• The 18th century was marked by
• Improvements in navigation and mapping
• Accumulation of data for charts
• Temperature, currents

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Historical Reviewof Oceanography (Cont.)

• In the United States, Benjamin Franklin
  (1769-1770) published the first chart of the Gulf
  Stream

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Historical Reviewof Oceanography (Cont.)

• In Britain, James Cook (1768-1779)
• Constructed charts of coastlines especially for
  the South Pacific
• Secondary discovery the Hawaiian Islands

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Historical Reviewof Oceanography (Cont.)

• In the 19th century curiosity about the oceans
  increased and voyages for scientific purposes
  were initiated

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• Charles Darwin British naturalist
• Voyage of the Beagle (1831-1836), studied geology
  and biology of the South American coastline
• Developed theory of organic evolution based on
  natural selection
• Published On the Origin of the Species (1859)

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The Voyage of the HMS Beagle
Charles Darwin
Route of the HMS Beagle
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Historical Reviewof Oceanography (Cont.)

• C. Wyville Thompson British explorer
• Directed the Challenger Expedition (1872-1876)
• First major scientific expedition
• Globe-encircling voyage
• Chemical, physical, and biological measurements
  and collections

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The Challenger Expedition
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What is Oceanography Today?
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Geological Oceanography(Marine Geology)

• Study of rocks and sediments processes
  responsible for their formation.

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Marine Geophysics

• Study of rock structure in the ocean basin,
  properties of rocks such as magnetism, occurrence
  of earthquakes.

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Physical Oceanography

• How and why ocean currents flow, air-sea
  interactions such as the generation of waves by
  the wind.

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Chemical Oceanography

• Composition of sea water and the processes
  controlling and altering its composition,
  including marine pollution.

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Biological Oceanography(Marine Biology)

• Organisms that live in the oceans and their
  relationships to the environment.

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Ocean Engineering

• Design and installation of oceanographic
  instrumentation and vehicles

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SummaryWhat is Oceanography?

• Broad science focused on the oceans
• Geology/geophysics, chemistry, physics, biology,
  engineering
• Highly interdisciplinary
• Also highly collaborative
• We are still exploring (!) but
• Feeds also into ocean policy, management, and
  conservation