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Monterey Canyon
James Alden discovers the first known underwater valley, California's Monterey Canyon. (navigation) -
Life Discovered in the Deep Sea
Charles Wyville Thomson, dredging from the H.M.S Lightning, finds sea life at 4,389 meters, disproving previous theories that the sea was lifeless below 549 meters. (scientific research) -
The First Oceanographic Research Vessel
The U.S. Fisheries Commission steamer Albatross begins operations as the first ship built to serve as an oceanographic research vessel. (scientific discoveries) -
The Titanic Sinks
The Titanic sinks after hitting an iceberg, killing 1,500 people. The tragedy led to efforts to develop an acoustic device to find objects ahead of a vessel. (helped navigation later on) -
Live Coelacanth Discovered
Fishermen off the coast of South Africa pull up a five-foot fish later identified as a coelacanth. This fish is a true living fossil thought to be extinct since the days of the dinosaurs. Since this discovery was made, several other live coelacanth have been discovered in African coastal waters and some have been photographed in their underwater habitat. (scientific research) -
The Aqua Lung
Jacques Cousteau and Emile Gagnan modify a demand breathing regulator to engineer the Aqua-Lung, forever changing the course of human interaction with the sea. (scientific research) -
First Underwater Robot
The Navy develops the Cable-controlled Underwater Recovery Vehicle (CURV). It is developed by the former Pasadena Annex of the Naval Ordnance Test Station to recover test ordnance lost off San Clemente Island at depths as great as 2,000 feet. It is designed to find and retrieve torpedoes it used in tests and training but becomes famous in 1966 when it recovers an H-bomb off Spain in 2,800 feet of water. (military) -
Sylvia Earle Leads Women Aquanauts
Sylvia Earle leads the first team of women aquanauts during the Tektite Project and sets a record for solo diving to a depth of 1,000 meters. (recreation) -
Creating Seafloor Maps
Declassification of GEOSAT radar altimetry data from a U.S. Navy Earth observation satellite leads to the worldwide mapping of the seafloor. (navigation) -
Seabed 2030
n international scientific team announces a plan that aims to map the entire floor of the Earth's oceans by 2030, using over a dozen tracking ships outfitted with advanced multibeam bathymetry technology. The effort, Seabed 2030, will fill in the considerable gaps in our knowledge of this massive region, of which less than 15 percent has been mapped in detail--less than some planets in our solar system. (navigation)