Around The Globe: Ocean Exploration

Ocean exploration is a term of oceanography describing the exploration of ocean surfaces. It is also the period when people explored the ocean boundaries. Notable explorers include: the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Polynesians, the Phoenicians, Phytheas, Herodotus, the Vikings, The Portuguese, and Christopher Columbus. Travel on the surface of the ocean through the use of boats dates back to prehistoric times, but only in modern times has extensive underwater exploration become possible. Scientific investigations began with such early scientists as James Cook, Charles Darwin and Edmund Halley. Ocean exploration itself coincided with the developments in shipbuilding, diving, navigation, depth measurement, exploration and cartography.

Early Exploration

4500 B.C. Around this time, coastal cultures like those in Greece and China began diving into the sea as a source of food gathering, commerce, and possibly even warfare.
4000 Egyptians developed sailing vessels, which were probably used only in the eastern Mediterranean near the mouth of the Nile River.
4000 B.C. - 1000 A.D. Polynesian colonization of South Pacific Islands.
1800 Basic measuring of the depths is done in Egypt.
600 Phoenicians developed sea routes around the entire Mediterranean and into the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. Going around Africa they reached England by sailing along the western European coast. Although they understood celestial navigation, they probably stayed within sight of land whenever possible.
500-200 Greeks developed trade routes in the Mediterranean using the length of the day (corrected for the time of the year) to estimate latitude.
450 Herodotus publishes a map of the Mediterranean region.
325 Pytheas, a Greek astronomer and geographer, sailed north out of the Mediterranean, reaching England and possibly even Iceland and Norway. He also developed the use of sightings on the North Star to determine latitude.
200 Eratosthenes determines fairly accurately the circumference of the Earth using angles of shadows in Syene and Alexandria.
150 B.C. Ptolemy produces a map of the Roman world, including lines of latitude and longitude, the continents of Asia, Europe, and Africa and the surrounding oceans.
900 A.D. -1430 A.D. Vikings explore and colonize Iceland, Greenland, Newfoundland.
1405-1433 Chinese send seven voyages to extend Chinese influence and impress their neighbor states. These expensive voyages are ended after a short time. See Zheng He (1371 - 1433).
1410 Ptolemy's map of the oceans is published once more after European crusades capture Roman libraries from Arab peoples.

From Age Exploration To Present

1492-1504 Christopher Columbus reaches America looking for a searoute to the Indies; discovering various lands and islands and establishing a colony on Hispaniola

1498 Vasco da Gama sails around Africa from Portugal reaching India and establishing trade routes
1519-1522 Ferdinand Magellan's ships circumnavigate the world.
1620 Dutch physician Cornelis Drebbel builds the world's first submarine and makes several trips in the River Thames near London at a depth of about 12 or 15 feet.
1698-1700 Edmund Halley made probably the first primarily scientific voyage to study the variation of the magnetic compass, sailing as far as 52 deg S. in the Atlantic Ocean. On a previous expedition to St. Helena, he made an important contribution to knowledge of the trade winds.
1768-1780 A.D. James Cook explores the southern parts of the oceans looking for the southern continent. He was the first to use a marine chronometer to determine longitude.
1785 A.D. Benjamin Franklin writes Sundry Marine Observations on improvements to ships and the Gulf Stream.
1831-1836 A.D. Charles Darwin sails on the Beagle, exploring the Galapagos and many other areas. It is this work which led him to develop the concept of natural selection and evolution.
1860 A.D. First chart of the Gulf Stream published by the U.S. Coast Survey.
1872-1876 A.D. The H.M.S. Challenger travels around the world on a scientific mission; taking sediment samples, water samples, soundings, and collecting many biological specimens.
1960 Bathyscaphe Trieste dives to what was believed to be the deepest point in the Mariana Trench. A depth of 10,915 meters was observed.

Ortelius World Map-1570

Age Of Exploration
Age of Exploration, was a period in history starting in the 15th century and continuing into the early 17th century during which Europeans engaged in intensive exploration of the world, establishing direct contacts with Africa, the Americas, Asia and Oceania and mapping the planet. Historians often refer to the 'Age of Discovery' as the pioneer Portuguese and Spanish long-distance maritime travels in search of alternative trade routes to "the Indies", moved by the trade of gold, silver and spices.

The Portuguese began systematically exploring the Atlantic coast of Africa from 1418, under the sponsorship of Prince Henry, reaching the Indian Ocean by this route in 1488. In 1492, racing to find a trade route to Asia, the Spanish monarchs funded Christopher Columbus’ plan to sail west to reach the “Indies” by crossing the Atlantic. He landed on an uncharted continent, then seen by Europeans as a “new world”, America. To prevent conflict between Portugal and Spain, a treaty was signed dividing the world into two regions of exploration, where each had exclusive rights to claim newly discovered lands. In 1498, a Portuguese expedition commanded by Vasco da Gama finally achieved the dream of reaching India by sailing around Africa, opening up direct trade with "Asia". Soon, the Portuguese sailed further eastward, to the valuable “spice islands” in 1512, landing in China one year later. East and west exploration overlapped in 1522, when Ferdinand Magellan led a Spanish expedition west, achieving the first circumnavigation of the world, while Spanish conquistadors explored inland the Americas, and later, some of the South Pacific islands. In 1595, the Dutch, French and English, who entered the race of exploration shortly after learning of these exploits, defied the Iberian monopoly on maritime trade by searching for new routes, first to the north, and into the Pacific Ocean around South America, but eventually by following the Portuguese around Africa into the Indian Ocean; discovering Australia in 1606, New Zealand in 1642, and Hawaii in 1778. Meanwhile, from the 1580s to the 1640s Russians explored and conquered almost the whole of Siberia.

The Age of Discovery is seen as a bridge between the Middle Ages and the Modern era, along with its contemporary Renaissance movement, triggering the early modern period and the rise of European nation-states. Accounts from distant lands and maps spread with the help of the new printing press fed the rise of humanism and worldly curiosity, ushering in a new age of scientific and intellectual inquiry. European overseas expansion led to the rise of colonial empires, with the contact between the Old and New Worlds producing the Columbian Exchange: a wide transfer of plants, animals, foods, human populations (including slaves), communicable diseases, and culture between the Eastern and Western hemispheres, in one of the most significant global events concerning ecology, agriculture, and culture in history. European exploration spanned until accomplishing the global mapping of the world, resulting in a new world-view and distant civilizations acknowledging each other, reaching the most remote boundaries much later.

Prelude (1241–1439)

Atlantic Ocean (1419–1507)