-
During this time, many costal countries like Greece and China started diving in the sea for food. Diving could have been used in warfare.
-
Ancient Egyptians created the first sailing vessels. They where only used for sailing in the eastern mediterraneah and near the mouth of the nile river. -
Spanish Explorer sets out a voyage across the Atlantic Ocean. He was in search of a route to china and india. He instead discovers North and South America. This eventually led to finding new continents. -
English mathematicians Willam Bourne draws the first plans for a underwater boat. These plans where for leather-covered wooden frame craft. The underwater boat would operate by being rowed inside. However there is no evidence this was ever built. -
Cornelis Drebbel builds the Worlds first submarine. The boat is made of wood reinforced with iron.
-
French Navy, develops one of the oldest diving suits with a waterproof dress with lead shoes Along with a meta helmet connected to two hoses which allowed the diver to breath.
-
President Thomas Jefferson signs a new law establishing the US coast survey. The organization studies the eastern coast of the US and returns data.
-
Coast Survey soundings in support of Gulf Stream investigations result in the discovery of the continental shelf break and the continental slope.
-
William Beebe and Otis Barton embark on a deep sea expedition in a tethered sphere known as a bathysphere. They reach a depth of a 3,000 feet (914 meters) off the coast of Bermuda and discover a previously unseen world of bizarre, luminescent creatures. -
During World War II, electronic navigation systems are developed for precision bombing. A few couple years later, the Coast and Geodetic Survey does its first hydrographic surveys using these systems. Research during the war leads to many new tools for ocean exploration, including deep-ocean camera systems, early magnetometers, sidescan sonar instruments, and early technology for guiding Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs).
-
American geologist Marie Tharp studies sounding profiles from the Atlantic Ocean and discovers a rift valley. Later studies show it to be a continuous rift extending over 40,000 nautical miles along the ocean floor. This discovery provides evidence for the newly formed theory of continental drift, know known as plate tectonics. -
The Scripps Institution of Oceanography begins development of the Deep Tow System. This sonar system becomes the forerunner of all remotely-operated and unmanned oceanographic systems today.
You are not authorized to access this page.