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A scuba diver, like so many others
throughout history, attempts to explore the ocean. Over the years, we have pursued
new and better ways to discover what lies in the depths of the deep blue.
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Making Waves
Two centuries of technological advances have allowed underwater pioneers to plumb the depths as never before.
Story by Matthew Talbot
The ocean is one of Earth’s greatest frontiers. Beneath its surface lies a nearly untouched
world that few people have been lucky enough to explore. But from deep-sea soundings to submarines,
marine technology has advanced so steadily over a period of 200 years that today the ocean
is nearly completely open to underwater pioneers. They’ve been able to determine the age of
the sea floor, find the wreck of the Titanic and discover new life forms.
SOUNDING OFF
Sir James Clark Ross, a British explorer, took the first modern sounding — one
of the first systematic measurements of the ocean’s depth as oppposed to the ancient soundings
mariners would take to aid in navigation — in 1840. He went on to chart most of the
coastline of Antarctica. His discovery was followed in 1868 by Sir Charles Wyville Thomson’s,
aboard the HMS Lightning, of life as deep as 2,400 fathoms. Thomson’s book, The Depths of
the Sea, became a classic in oceanography.
Between 1874 and 1885, the U.S. Coast Survey steamer Blake brought innovations to the field.
The ship’s crew mapped the Gulf of Mexico using the first piano-wire sounding machine. Theirs
was the first accurate map of any part of the deep ocean. They were the first to use steel
rope rather than hemp in dredging operations, and the first to use that tapered steel wire
to anchor the ship in incredible depths. Today, many scientists use steel wire to lower tools
into the ocean, and the Blake’s method of deep-sea anchoring is used to moor weather buoys,
which warn of approaching storms.
After the Titanic sank, in 1912, scientists were driven to find new ways of exploring the
underwater world. They discovered the depth of the ocean could be found using electromechanical
sounding systems. This research intensified during the First World War as underwater warfare
became predominant.
In 1923, the Coast Survey became the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey (C&GS). The
electromechanical sounding system was refined until about the 1930s, when nearly every C&GS
ship sailing from the dockyards was equipped with a fathometre, a much more compact and accurate
device than the echo sounders of the early 1900s.
EXPLOSIVE TECHNOLOGY
At the time, the C&GS was also developing radio acoustic ranging (RAR), the first navigation
system that could be used at any time. Surveyors threw small explosives into the water and
used hydrophones and radios to measure the time it took transmissions to reach the ship;
this figure, multiplied by the velocity of sound in water, allowed them to determine the
position of a ship. The RAR system led to developments in the understanding of sound in sea
water and was perhaps the pioneer of sonar.
During the Second World War, other inventions included deep-ocean camera systems, side-scan
sonar instruments and early technology for guiding remotely operated vehicles.
In 1954, the French research ship F.N.R.S.-3 dove to deeper than 13,000 feet off the coast
of Dakar, Senegal. The dive, piloted by Georges Houot and Pierre Willm, marked the first
use of the manned, untethered research submersible. A year later, underwater explorers, in
a survey conducted from the C&GS ship Pioneer, discovered linear stripes on the sea floor
that allowed them to determine its age — information that led to the theory of plate
tectonics.
As the world entered an age of rapid technological advancement, the exploration of the
oceans rose to another level. The Scripps Institution of Oceanography, which had been partners
with C&GS in the Pioneer survey, began development in 1961 of the Deep Tow System, the forerunner
of all remotely operated vehicles.
Then, in 1985, a team led by Dr. Robert Ballard located the Titanic, the most famous shipwreck
in modern history. Aided by incredible new technology and remotely operated vehicles they
searched not only outside the wreck but inside as well. The discovery of the Titanic marked
a culmination of all the preceding technology and the ushering in of a new era in ocean exploration.
Now, nuclear-powered submarines glide beneath the waves, manned and unmanned submersibles
inspect shelves and abysses, completely self-sustaining underwater habitats house scientists
and their research, and explorers are discovering more about aquatic life with each passing
day. The underwater world is getting a lot smaller as technology makes it that much easier
to explore.
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