Challenger expedition: birth of oceanography
Expedición Challenger: nacimiento de la oceanografía
- Date
- 1872-1876 · confidence high
- Place
- Portsmouth, United Kingdom (departure); Mariana Trench (8,184-m sounding)
- Credited to
- Charles Wyville Thomson, John Murray; HMS Challenger
- People
- 👤 Charles Wyville Thomson1830–1882👤 John Murray1841–1914
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
HMS Challenger travelled 130,000 km, carried out 492 soundings and 362 stations, discovered 4,700 new species and measured a depth of 8,184 m in the Marianas. Its 50 volumes of reports founded modern oceanography.
Coordinates of the deepest sounding, near the Challenger Deep, which is named after the ship. It departed from Portsmouth.
What it led to
- Oceanography as a scientific discipline
- Discovery of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge (early indications) and of abyssal life
- Manganese nodules and seabed resources
Built on
- Transatlantic telegraph cable and preliminary soundings
- Dredgings by Forbes and Thomson