Exploring the Oceans

The oceans, comprising more than 70% or 140 million square miles of the earth's surface, have tremendous potential waiting to be developed. Besides being a source of  food-fish, mammals, reptiles, salt and other marine foodstuffs - the tides can be harnessed to provide power. Formal oceanographic investigation began only with the British expedition of the Challenger (1873-1876) , the first successful world-wide deep-sea expedition.

Oceanography, the science of the oceans, has become such as important subject in recent years that researches into the deep seas have been conducted by many institutions , universities, government organisations etc. The most famous international oceanographic research centre is the International Council for the Exploration of the sea with its headquarters in Copenhagen. Ocean exploration for the observation and recording  of oceanographic data is a very expensive matter. It involves the operation and maintenance of specially equipped vessels in mid-ocean for long periods, and large-scale oceanographic researches are thus best undertaken by international bodies. The older echo-sounding techniques have now been replaced by radar sounding and electrical echo devices to find the precise depths of ocean floors and map the relief of the oceans. Trained frog-men equipped with modern breathing apparatus are employed to gather valuable information from great depths. deep sea core samples are obtained by boring for the study of the oceanic deposits - the various kinds of oozes, muds and clays. Automatic-recording thermometers and other sensitive instruments can be lowered to any required depths by stationary vessels with laboratory facilities for processing any required data. For the observation and measurment of current flow, various kinds of current meters using propllers, vanes or pendulums have been designed. Sealed bottles and other floating objects contain instructions for reporting their precise time and place of discovery are released in large numbers to compute the rate and direction of drift and current flow. With all these modern techniques at the disposal of the oceanographers, our knowledge of the mysteries of the oceans is greatly increased. But there is still much to be discovered.

For more updates on this topic subscribe via email and stay tuned.