How Knowledge about the Ocean changes over time.

Many say space is the final frontier, but they forget about the ocean. In the 1960s, two men traveled to the deepest part of the ocean, which is the Mariana Trench. Fifty years later and no one has gone that deep (Cousteau 193). Only five percent of the ocean has been explored, and so much of it is unknown to the world (Bardoe 208). One hundred seventy-five years ago scientists thought that the deeper the ocean got, the less sea creatures there were. Today with new technologies scientists have found that there is much more life than they previously thought in the deepest parts of the ocean.

A theory called the azoic hypothesis was created by a scientist named Edward Forbes in the 1840s regarding the amount of organisms that lived at the bottom of the ocean. To determine the number of organisms at the bottom of the ocean, he joined Thomas Graves on the HMS Beacon and dredged the Aegean Sea 100 times (Bardoe 202). As he got deeper samples he came up with less life. Many others believed his theory because this is what happens on land. If the extremely high and cold mountains kept life away, the cold dark ocean must do the same. “Forbes concluded that nothing at all lived below 1,600 feet (500 meters) deep” (Bardoe 203). Forbes recorded this data and then showed his findings to fellow scientists. Many believed Forbes because he was a very persuasive man (Deserts on the sea floor). However, there were some scientists who did not believe his theory and sought to disprove it.

After Forbes came up with this theory, sea stars and clams have been hauled up from even deeper depths than 1,600 feet. Much evidence was found against the azoic hypothesis during the next century. John Ross who was captain over HMS Erebus and HMS Terror and collected samples of worms and sea stars from 1,800 feet deep. Despite this evidence, scientists overlooked it because John Ross was not considered reliable and scientists didn’t believe him when he showed them his findings (The Azoic Hypothesis). In addition, corals were found at 2,500 feet, starfish and oysters were found at 7,500 feet, and 4,700 new species were found at 16,000 feet. Scientists thought that since photosynthesis wasn't possible at such depths that life would subsist on marine snow (Bardoe 203). Forbes was a very influential man and many believed his theory despite the contradicting evidence. It wasn’t until the 1970s that views on the matter started to change.

In 1977 a team of researchers got into a mini-sub called Alvin and went to the bottom of the ocean to find life. They found a hydrothermal vent coming out of the ocean floor with an ecosystem living around it. This discovery was extraordinary because they found chemosynthetic bacteria which use chemicals to create energy. Then after this discovery they found that life on the bottom of the ocean was thriving and not surviving off of just marine snow, but off of chemosynthetic bacteria (Bardoe 203). The life they found included spider crabs, mussels, worms, and a wide variety of new sea creatures. After a lot of hard work and time, scientists retrieved enough evidence to convince everyone that life at the bottom of the ocean was plentiful.

Less than two centuries ago Edward Forbes created the azoic hypothesis, and then after much contradicting to his theory scientists learned that life was abundant deep in the ocean. Philippe Cousteau states, “You may think I’m doing my grandfather Jacques Yves- Cousteau and my father Philippe a disservice when I say we’ve only dipped our toes in the water when it comes to ocean exploration” (194). Cousteau is explaining that we have barely gotten our hands dirty exploring the ocean and that we need to pick up the pace. So little of the ocean has been explored and so the more discoveries we make about the ocean the more our knowledge of it will change.

Words Cited

Anderson, Rice. “Deserts on the sea floor: Edward Forbes and his azoic hypothesis for a

lifeless deep ocean.” National Center for Biotechnology Information. 13 November 2006.

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Bardoe, Cheryl. “Living in the Dark.” California Collections 2017: 201-208. Print.

Benningfield, Damond. “Azoic Theory.” Science and the Sea. 29 September 2017. Web.

Cousteau, Philippe. “Why Exploring the Ocean is Mankind's Next Giant Leap.”

California Collections 2017: 193-196. Print.

“Edward Forbes.” HMS Challenger Project. 24 September 2014. Web.

“Edward Forbes.” Wikipedia. 15 January 2018. Web.

White, Isobel. “The Azoic Hypothesis.” Extreme Marine. 11 September 2017. Web.