Oceanography, also known as oceanology, sea science and ocean science, is the scientific study of the oceans. It is an Earth science, which covers a wide range of topics, including ecosystem dynamics; ocean currents, waves, and geophysical fluid dynamics; plate tectonics and seabed geology; and fluxes of various chemical substances and physical properties within the ocean and across its boundaries. These diverse topics reflect multiple disciplines that oceanographers utilize to glean further knowledge of the world ocean, including astronomy, biology, chemistry, climatology, geography, geology, hydrology, meteorology and physics. Paleoceanography studies the history of the oceans in the geologic past. An oceanographer is a person who studies many matters concerned with oceans, including marine geology, physics, chemistry, and biology.
The Challenger expedition of 1872–1876 was a scientific programme that made many discoveries to lay the foundation of oceanography. The expedition was named after the naval vessel that undertook the trip, HMS Challenger.
Vice-Admiral Sir George Strong Nares was a Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. He commanded the Challenger Expedition, and the British Arctic Expedition. He was highly thought of as a leader and scientific explorer. In later life he worked for the Board of Trade and as Acting Conservator of the River Mersey.
Sir Charles Wyville Thomson was a Scottish natural historian and marine zoologist. He served as the chief scientist on the Challenger expedition; his work there revolutionized oceanography and led to his being knighted.
Janolus is a genus of small to large sea slugs, or more accurately nudibranchs, marine gastropod mollusks, in the family Janolidae. The name Janolus is derived from the two-headed god Janus, in ancient Roman mythology.
Thomas Henry Tizard was an English oceanographer, hydrographic surveyor, and navigator.
The Philomel-class gunvesselHMS Newport was launched in Wales in 1867. Having become the first ship to pass through the Suez Canal, she was sold in 1881 and renamed Pandora II. She was purchased again in about 1890 and renamed Blencathra, taking part in expeditions to the north coast of Russia. She was bought in 1912 by Georgy Brusilov for use in his ill-fated 1912 Arctic expedition to explore the Northern Sea Route, and was named Svyataya Anna, after Saint Anne. The ship became firmly trapped in ice; only two members of the expedition, Valerian Albanov and Alexander Konrad, survived. The ship has never been found.
HMS Alert was a 17-gun wooden screw sloop of the Cruizer class of the Royal Navy, launched in 1856 and broken up in 1894. She was the eleventh ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name, and was noted for her Arctic exploration work; in 1876 she reached a record latitude of 82° North. Alert briefly served with the US Navy, and ended her career with the Canadian Marine Service as a lighthouse tender and buoy ship.
HMS Discovery was a wood-hulled screw expedition ship, and later storeship, formerly the sealing ship Bloodhound built in 1873 in Dundee. She was purchased in 1874 for the British Arctic Expedition of 1875–1876 and later served as a store ship. Discovery was sold in 1902, reverting to the name Bloodhound and her previous sealing trade. The ship was wrecked in Newfoundland in 1917.
John Fiot Lee Pearse Maclear was an admiral in the Royal Navy, known for his leadership in hydrography.
The era of European and American voyages of scientific exploration followed the Age of Discovery and were inspired by a new confidence in science and reason that arose in the Age of Enlightenment. Maritime expeditions in the Age of Discovery were a means of expanding colonial empires, establishing new trade routes and extending diplomatic and trade relations to new territories, but with the Enlightenment scientific curiosity became a new motive for exploration to add to the commercial and political ambitions of the past. See also List of Arctic expeditions and List of Antarctic expeditions.
Ocean dredging was an oceanography technique introduced in the nineteenth century and developed by naturalist Edward Forbes. This form of dredging removes substrate and fauna specifically from the marine environment. Ocean dredging techniques were used on the HMS Challenger expeditions as a way to sample marine sediment and organisms.
John Robertson Henderson CIE FRSE FZS FLS was a Scottish zoologist who specialized in the taxonomy of marine crustaceans, particularly the decapods, and worked on specimens collected by the oceanic research vessels Investigator and Challenger. From 1892 until 1911 he was Professor of Zoology at Madras Christian College in India. From 1908 to 1920 he was Superintendent of the Government Museum in Madras. He also took an interest in numismatics and Indian history.
Collodaria is a unicellular order under the phylum Radiozoa and the infrakingdom Rhizaria. Like most of the Radiolaria taxonomy, Collodaria was first described by Ernst Haeckel, a German scholar who published three volumes of manuscript describing the extensive samples of Radiolaria collected by the voyage of HMS Challenger. Recent molecular phylogenetic studies concluded that there are Collodaria contains three families, Sphaerozodae, Collosphaeridae, and Collophidilidae.
Poa novarae is a species of flowering plant in the family Poaceae (grasses), native to Saint Paul Island. It was first described by Heinrich Wilhelm Reichardt in 1871.
Primnoeides is a genus of Cnidaria in the family Primnoidae.
Cereus insularis is a species of columnar cactus found in Brazil.
HMS Lightning, launched in 1823, was a paddle steamer, one of the first steam-powered ships on the Navy List. She served initially as a packet ship, but was later converted into an oceanographic survey vessel.
Edward Killwick Calver was a Captain in the Royal Navy, and hydrographic surveyor. He is particularly noted for his surveying work in the east of Britain, and as the captain of HMS Porcupine, in oceanographic voyages in 1869 and 1870.
Octopus vitiensis, or the bighead octopus, is a species of octopus provisionally placed in the genus Octopus. It was described by William Evans Hoyle in 1885 based on a specimen found in reefs in Kandavu, Fiji during a voyage of HMS Challenger.
United Kingdom
