History of Oceanography

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History of Oceanography
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Why study historic oceanography?

• Connected to the worlds overall history
• Commerce, warfare, resources, weather
• The oceans have shaped humanitys past

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Why study Oceanographic History?

• Understand how and why people apply marine
  sciences today
• Oceanographys history is about people, not just
  oceans and test tubes.

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Ancient Uses and Explorations (5000 B.C. to 800
A.D.)

• Not sure when ocean voyages actually began
• Fish hooks and spears dated approximately 5000
  B.C.
• Earliest recorded sea voyage Egyptians about
  3200 B.C.

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Phoenician Explorations

• 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

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Phoenician Navigation

• 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

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Polynesian Exploration

• 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

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Polynesian Significance

• Earliest known regular, long-distance, open-ocean
  seafaring beyond sight of land

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Greek Exploration

• 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

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Eratosthenes (264-194 B.C)

• 2 major contributions that furthered Pytheas
  work
• Calculated Earths Circumference 40,000 km
• Invented first latitude/longitude system

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Map of World According to Eratosthenes
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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
• System still used today

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Middle Ages (800 A.D.-1400)
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Vikings (790 A.D. to 1100)

• 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)

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Chinese Exploration

• 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

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European Exploration and the Renaissance

• Prince Henry the navigator, (1420s) founded
  first school of navigation
• Christopher Columbus (1490s) 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

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Magellans Circumnavigation of World
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The Beginning of Ocean Science
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18th Century

• 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

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Cooks Expedition(1768 1779)

• 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

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Ben Franklin and the Gulf Stream (1777)

• 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.

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Father of Oceanography Matthew Maury

• 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

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Darwin, Coral Reefs and Biological Evolution

• 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.

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The Rosses, Edward Forbes, and life in the deep
sea

• 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.

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The Ocean as Laboratory The Challenger
Expedition (1872-1876)

• 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.

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Alexander Agassiz(1836-1919)

• multimillionaire benefactor to oceanography,
  especially in the U.S.
• 1st to use steel cables for deep sea dredging

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Victor Henson and Marine Ecology

• 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.

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Polar oceanography begins with the voyage of the
Fram

• 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.

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Twentieth century oceanography
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Voyage of the Meteor

• 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

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Oceanography gets institutionalized

• 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 AM University administered The Ocean
  Drilling Program

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SCRIPPS
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Woods Hole
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Lamont
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The expansion of oceanography

• 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 ocean- floor topography.
• After WW2 U.S. government established a Sea Grant
  program to fund ocean research

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Large-scale and international oceanographic
research

• 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.

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The history behind plate tectonic theory

• 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
  Earths magnetic field over time

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Humans invade the deep ocean

• 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

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Submersibles

• 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
• Japans Shinkai- to study microbes in the deep
  sea

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Trieste (1960)

• The bathyscaphe, Trieste, descends to 10,915
  meters
• Into Marianas Trench
• Deepest depth in the ocean

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Submersibles

• 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

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A.U.V.s vs. R.O.V.s
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Living under the sea

• Jacques Cousteau- began designing and testing the
  underwater living chamber in the 1950s
• In the 1970s teams lived undersea chambers for up
  to 60 days
• May be placed on ocean floor or suspended
• Can respond and equalize to any pressure

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Aquarius
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Remote sensing

• 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

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SEASAT A
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TOPEX / POSEIDON
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Terms Equipment

• Secchi disk- Determines how transparency of
• the water
• Core Sampler- takes samples of core sediments
• Hydrometer- Determines the density of the
• water
• Dredge- scoops up marine life
• Alvin- famous submarine that explored
• deep sea

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Terms Equipment

• Side-scan sonar- sonar that can scan in all
• 
  directions
• Current meter- determines the speed
  and
• 
  direction of the current
• Underwater camera camera that can work
• 
  underwater
• Flip- a bottle like vessel that
• can flip sideways in the
• water
• Purse seine net- used to capture schools
• of fish