Worksheet 5.1--The History of Oceanography
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Worksheet 5.1--The History of Oceanography Reading: Introduction to the World’s Oceans pages 4-22 1. The field of oceanography today is so broad that oceanography is usually broken down into a number of sub disciplines: a. ________________________________________ includes the study of the earth at the sea’s edge and below its surface b. ________________________________________ investigates how and why the oceans move c. ________________________________________ is the study of heat transfer, water cycles, and air-sea interactions. d. ________________________________________ studies the composition and history of the water e. ________________________________________ concerns the marine organisms and the relationship between these organisms and the environment. f. ________________________________________ is the discipline that designs and plans equipment and installations for use at sea. 2. When did oceanography begin to develop as a modern science? ____________________ The Early Times 3. Around 200 BC the Egyptian scientist Eratosthenes mapped the known world and calculated the circumference of the earth as 40,250 km. Today’s measurement is ______________ . How far from the correct value was Erathosthenes? 4. Approximately 350 years later the Roman Scientist Ptolemy produced the world’s first atlas. His atlas listed more than 8,000 places by latitude and longitude but his work contained a major flaw. What was it? 5. What difference would it have made for Columbus and other explorers if they had used Erathosthenes’ more accurate estimate of the earth’s circumference rather than Ptolemy’s flawed estimate? The Middle Ages 6. When did the Vikings reach North America? _______________ 7. Who first established regular trade routes across the Indian Ocean? _______________ 8. What instrument was introduced to Europe in the 13th century that greatly aided navigation? ______________ Voyages of Discovery 9. The great age of discovery began in 1487 when _______________________________ sailed around the Cape of Good Hope into the _______________________________. 10. Christopher Columbus made __________ voyages across the Atlantic Ocean searching for a way to _________________. 11. Who first assigned the name “America” to the “new world” and for whom was it named? 12. Why was there such an interest in finding and establishing a Northwest Passage? The Beginnings of Ocean Science 13. Who first understood tides and published an explanation of them? 14. Edmund Halley suggested that the age of the oceans could be calculated by determining the rate at which____________________________________________________ 15. What were Captain Cook’s contributions to our understanding of oceanography? 16. Why did Benjamin Franklin consider it so important to chart the Gulf Stream current? 17. Who was Matthew F. Maury and why is he considered by many to be the “founder of oceanography”? Ocean Science Begins 18. Baron Alexander von Humboldt made observations on a 5 year cruise to _____________________ 19. Why do you think that Edward Forbes concluded that there was no life in the oceans below 1800 ft? 20. What did the engineers who laid the first transatlantic cable need to know about the oceans? 21. What are three contributions the Challenger Expedition made to the science of the oceans? Oceanography as a Science 22. What was Fridtjof Nansen trying to prove by freezing his vessel in the polar ice? 23. In 1925 the first echo sounder was deployed on the German research vessel Meteor which was supposedly sent out for purely oceanographic reasons. What was the German government also trying to discover with the Meteor? 24. Who built the first ship designed specifically for scientific ocean exploration and what was its name? 25. Why did interest in oceanography explode during World War II? What oceanographic information did the US and its allies need to know? 26. When was NOAA formed? _____________ 27. In 1957, sixty-seven nations cooperated to explore the seafloor in the ______________________________ program Marine Archaeology 28. The oldest known shipwreck is from what century? _________________. Where was it discovered? 29. Why are deep water wrecks more preserved than those in shallow water? 30. Who discovered the Titanic shipwreck? ______________________ 31. What type of equipment was used to find and explore the Titanic? 32. In addition to shipwrecks, marine archaeologists have also found sunken shore towns. One of the most famous is the city of _____________________ built by ________________________________. .