EXPLORING THE OCEAN

Ms. Bridgeland 6th Grade

Why have people been interested in studying the ocean since ancient

times?

3 Major Reasons

• 1) Ocean provides FOOD

• 2) Serves as a route for TRADE

• 3) Is a way to TRAVEL – Travel to have accurate maps– Fame for scientific discoveries

The Challenger*The crew of a British ship, THE CHALLENGER began a voyage in 1872

*lasted about 1,000 days

*first ship used for OCEAN RESEARCH

*by the end of the journey, scientists on the ship had gathered enough data to collect 4,000 new organisms

*gathered data on temperature, currents, water chemistry, ocean floor deposits

*led by Captain James Cook

*was a model for later ocean research expeditions

Exploring the Ocean Floor

• Until recently, the ocean floor was unexplored• No helpful ocean floor research until 1925

• WHY did it take so long to explore the ocean floor?

The ocean floor is more than twice as deep as the Grand Canyon

The ocean floor is about 3.8 kilometers deep

•Why is it difficult to study life at this depth?

Conditions are very HARSH

• There is NO sunlight at this depth

• The water is very COLD

• Deep water exerts tremendous PRESSURE

Discoveries that helped scientists study the ocean floor

•SONAR: Sound navigation and ranging

• a system that uses sound waves to calculate the distance to an object• Pulses bounce off the ocean floor

and return to the ship • 1925

S.C.U.B.A.

• 1943: self-contained underwater breathing apparatus

• A tank containing compressed air that is strapped to a diver’s back and connected by a tube to a mouthpiece

• Only enables divers to explore to a depth of 40 meters

1960 -Submersibles

• Explorers traveled on a submersible called “Trieste”

• Thick metal helped them safely reach lower depths

• Was sent into the “Challenger Deep” which is the Mariana Trench

• Moved 3 ft per second and reached the ocean floor in about 4 hours

• At the Navy Museum in Washington, D.C.

2003: Deep Flight Aviator

• A new type of submersible was launched in San Francisco Bay.

• Moved faster and more easily than others• Passengers could see more