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3: Studying the Oceans

  • Page ID
    45463
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    A scuba diver
    A diver in an underwater cavern
    A pink nudibranch
     
    Figure 3-1. Developments in scuba diving technology are revolutionizing marine sciences. The strange-looking backpack on the diver shown in the image on the left is a scuba rebreather system that removes carbon dioxide that the diver breathes out so that the gases can be rebreathed many times. Rebreather systems use a computer to control the mixture of air, oxygen, and helium that the diver breathes allowing divers to make very deep dives and return to the surface safely without the many hours of decompression that are usually needed. The spectacular nudibranch shown in the photo to the right is one of many never-before-seen species found on a number of very deep dives made with the rebreather in Papua New Guinea. It was collected from a depth of about 130 m. Scuba is normally limited to a maximum depth of about 50 m.

    Over 80% of the ocean remains unexplored. Far less of the deep oceans have been fully explored. For example, humans have observed the deep ocean floor in real time only from submersibles or by video from remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and these observations are estimated to have covered less than 0.001% of the ocean floor. This chapter will introduce you to the tools and techniques used by oceanographers and explain why the oceans are so difficult to study. Some of the tools described in the chapter are now obsolete, but only by understanding how ingenious oceanographers need to be to overcome the difficulties of studying the oceans can we appreciate why we still do not know more about them. This understanding is also necessary for a full appreciation of the immense value of technologies, such as the Global Positioning System (GPS), advanced satellite sensors, autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and computers that can rapidly analyze and graphically portray massive amounts of data.


    3: Studying the Oceans is shared under a not declared license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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