Researched
HMS Challenger expedition
The Challenger voyage (1872-76) was the first global ocean survey, sounding the deep sea and finding life at every depth.
Open in the interactive tree →HMS Challenger, a steam-assisted Royal Navy corvette fitted out as a floating laboratory, circled the world from 1872 to 1876 under Charles Wyville Thomson, sounding depths, dredging and measuring temperature and seawater chemistry. It found animals at depths of 5,500 m and many new species, and its sounding of 4,475 fathoms near Guam marked what is now called the Challenger Deep. John Murray edited the 50-volume report, which founded oceanography as a science.
Prerequisites
- Earth measurement and maps~240 BC
- Steamship1807
Unlocks
- Echo Sounding & Sonar1913
- Mapping the ocean floor1957
- Argo Ocean Float Network2000-2007