Explainer

View of the vast ocean and horizon from an offshore platform under cloudy skies

In 1962 engineers launched a 355-foot research platform that flooded its tanks until 300 feet pointed straight down, turning FLIP into a nearly motionless ocean laboratory that served scientists for 61 years before its 2023 retirement

Ocean scientists need a steady platform when their instruments are tracking faint sounds, subtle currents and the exchange between sea and sky. FLIP answered that need in an extraordinary way. Three hundred feet of a 355-foot platform could disappear beneath the Pacific in less than half an hour, leaving 55 feet above the water like…

Deep-sea manned vehicle for oceanographic research and rescue operations

Oceans Explainer

In 1974, Alvin and two French submersibles descended into the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, made 44 dives and collected 100,000 photographs and 3,000 pounds of rock while giving scientists a close view of how new ocean crust takes shape

Illuminated HMS Belfast with Tower Bridge in the backdrop at night in London

Oceans Explainer

In 1872 HMS Challenger left Portsmouth with six scientists and 243 crew members, traveled nearly 127,000 kilometers over almost four years, made 492 depth soundings and returned with a global record that helped establish modern oceanography

NOAA bathymetric map of Monterey Bay and its submarine canyon

Oceans Explainer

In 1857, James Alden found a deep valley in Monterey Bay while sounding from the Coast Survey Steamer Active, revealing the first known seafloor canyon before sonar existed and giving mariners an early glimpse of the hidden terrain beneath California’s central coast

Technology Explainer

In 1958 USS Nautilus slipped beneath the Arctic ice on a secret second attempt, carried 116 people across the geographic North Pole and emerged near Greenland after nuclear propulsion solved the endurance problem that had stopped earlier submarines

NASA satellite composite centered on the Indian Ocean, southern Africa and Madagascar

Oceans Explainer

Indian Ocean facts

Oceans Explainer

In 1961 CUSS I held position in 11,673 feet of Pacific water and drilled through 558 feet of sediment into basalt, proving deep-ocean drilling could work and launching a field while Project Mohole’s goal of reaching Earth’s mantle remained out of reach

A lone great barracuda swimming gracefully in deep blue ocean water

Oceans Explainer

In 1934 William Beebe and Otis Barton descended 3,028 feet off Bermuda inside the cable-hung Bathysphere and their telephone reports of luminous animals opened a view of the deep ocean that no person had previously seen alive

The stakes were plain as the small sphere dropped beneath the Atlantic off Bermuda in 1934. At 3,028 feet, the sea pressed against its hull with a force that could turn a small failure into disaster. Inside, William Beebe and Otis Barton watched through thick windows, spoke to colleagues above and entered an ocean realm…

Oceans Explainer

What is sargassum? The seaweed that makes a floating ocean habitat

Ocean currents gather Sargassum into loose golden-brown rafts that drift across the sea. Each raft begins as a tangle of branches, leaflike blades and tiny round floats. Wind and currents can bring many rafts together into long weedlines that run across the surface. Far offshore, that living cover shelters animals in a place with few…

Nature and landscape concept - view to cliffs of moher and atlantic ocean in ireland

Oceans Explainer

Upwellings bring the ocean’s deep pantry to the surface

Wind along a coast can move surface water out to sea and open a path for water from far below to rise. That water carries nutrients that have collected in the dark. This ocean lift is called upwelling and it can trigger a burst of microscopic plant life that feeds a much larger food web.…

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