Oceanography, Geography of the Sea

Have you ever wondered about the oceans in the sea? Or wanted to study the ocean when you grow up? The geography of the sea is called oceanography also known as oceanology or marine science and it’s part of the branches of Earth Science. The roots of oceanography go back to tens of thousands of years when people started to venture from their coastlines on rafts. These were the first seasurfing explorers, navigators and the first oceanographers began to pay attention to the ocean in many ways. They observed waves, storms, tides and currents that carried their rafts away in certain directions at times. It wasn’t until 850 B.C. that the early naturalists and philosophers tried making sense of the enormous bodies of water they saw from the land. Because people could see the ocean from the shoreline, they believed that the world was flat. Modern oceanography began as a field of science only a little less than a few years later in the 19^th century after Americans, British and Europeans launched a few expeditions to explore ocean currents, ocean life, and seafloor off their coastlines. The first science expedition to explore the world’s oceans and seafloor was the Challenger Expedition from 1872 to 1876 on board a British three-masted warship by the name of the HMS Challenger. Modern Oceanography didn’t take off until World War II when the U.S. Navy wanted to learn more about the oceans to gain fighting advantages, especially in submarine warfare. Now, oceanography is used everywhere, in the navy, the military, in research, even in science. Many new discoveries await us into the future as oceanographers use new instruments and deep submerge vehicles to help them with their research about the ocean as it changes through the waves, the seas below, and the many wonders of our oceans that surround us today.