deep sea exploration past + present + future

Katy Croff Bell MIT Media Lab @katycroffbell the past ~330 BC | Aristotle wrote about Alexander the Great being lowered into the sea in a glass barrel 1521 | Ferdinand Magellan tried to measure the depth of the Pacific Ocean with a 2,400 ft (732 m) weighted line, but did not find bottom 1620 | Dutch engineer Cornelis Drebbel built the first navigable submarines 1710s | John Lethbridge built a completely enclosed suit to aid in salvage work 1749-1827 | Pierre Simon de Laplace calculated the average depth of the Atlantic ocean to be 3,962 meters by observing tidal motions on Brazilian and African coasts. 1872 | HMS Challenger set sail; discovered 715 new genera and 4,417 new species 1930 | Beebe and Barton are the first humans to reach the Deep Sea in the . 1960 | Jacques Piccard and LT Don Walsh set a new record of 35,800 ft aboard Trieste in the Mariana Trench 1964 | Alvin is a crewed deep-ocean research submersible owned by the US Navy and operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) 1977 | Marie Tharp completed the first map of the ocean floor 1986 | First fiber-optically cabled deep-sea robot the present

© ONC

Exploring We are studying the impacts of the BP oil spill on the Gulf of Mexico, WATCH LIVE Now corals and other animals that live on the seafloor. USA

2009-2012: Mediterranean

Black Sea Gorringe Bank Aeolian Arc SE Aegean Sea W. Mediterranean Hellenic Arc Anaximander Mountains Straits of Sicily E Mediterranean Eratosthenes Seamount Knidos F, Turkey

SE Aegean Sea

Kolumbo Volcano, Greece

Hellenic Arc

Roman Lab, URI

Straits of Sicily, Italy

Straits of Sicily

2013-2015: Caribbean & Gulf of Mexico

Gulf of Mexico Great Bahama Bank

Greater Antilles Mesoamerican Montserrat Mid-Cayman Rise Windward Dominica Passage Kick’em Jenny Trinidad Cold Seeps

Kick’em Jenny, Grenada

Kick’em Jenny, Grenada

Kick’em Jenny

Ocean Networks Canada Cascadia Margin

Greater Farallones NMS Central California Channel Islands NMS Southern California

Galapagos Rift

2015-2016: Eastern Pacific Galapagos Islands

challenges 71 % have deep waters (200+ m) ~15% have deep water access Using current exploration methods, it will take we need to fundamentally change how we explore the ocean

10-100,000 ship-years to completely view the seafloor deep sea exploration is. . . inefficient expensive exclusive WE NEED A NEW APPROACH DEVELOPING LOW-COST SENSORS & PLATFORMS ADVANCING DATA ANALYSIS, ACCESS, & ARCHIVE CREATING A GLOBAL COMMUNITY OF EXPLORERS DEVELOPING LOW-COST SENSORS & PLATFORMS WAYFINDERS future ocean lab@mit MAKA NIU ADVANCING DATA ANALYSIS, ACCESS, & ARCHIVE FATHOMNET

BALL-LIKE CLAM-LIKE CRUSTACEAN-LIKE DISK-LIKE FAN-LIKE FISH-LIKE FLOWER-LIKE LAMPSHADE-LIKE LATERALLY-FLATTENED LILY-LIKE OCTOPUS-LIKE PEN-LIKE PLANT-LIKE SHELL-LIKE STAR-LIKE TORPEDO-LIKE TRASH VASE-LIKE WORM-LIKE LILLI CREATING A GLOBAL COMMUNITY OF EXPLORERS MY DEEP SEA, MY BACKYARD LINDBLAD-NAT GEO EXPEDITIONS POLYNESIAN VOYAGING SOCIETY