What is Oceanography?
Besides being a means of travel, trade, and defence, oceans are becoming the focus of research to satisfy food and mineral resource needs as well as economic and social requirements. It is for the latter segment that we turn to oceanography, which deals with the study of oceans and their related activities. Oceanographic research includes study of underwater volcanoes, assessment and extraction of mineral wealth from the ocean basin, development of environmental technology to treat contamination of ocean water.
Oceanography, also called oceanology or marine science, is a huge science considered a branch of the Earth sciences. Oceanography is an interdisciplinary science that uses insights from biology, chemistry, geology, meteorology, and physics to analyze ocean currents, marine ecosystems, ocean storms, waves, ocean plate tectonics, and features of the ocean floor, including exotic biomes such as cold seeps and hydrothermal vents. Modern oceanography began in the 1760s with science-minded explorers such as British James Cook and the French Antoine de Bougainville, who included oceanographic observations in reports of their journeys. Oceanography is divided into four general categories: biological oceanography (marine oceanography), the study of marine biota and their interactions; chemical oceanography (marine chemistry), which studies the chemistry of the oceans, both past and present, and the way it interacts with the atmosphere and the carbon cycle; geological oceanography (marine geolog
Oceanography is a relatively new discipline that is constantly discovering exciting findings about the Earth. The oceans represent more than 70 percent of Earth’s surface, much of which is unexplored and unstudied. Oceanographers have found and studied deep ocean trenches, revealed the mechanics behind plate tectonics and continental drift, revealed amazing life and helped us place the precarious ecologic balance of the oceans, atmosphere, ice, solid earth, and living organisms in a perspective that informs our policies and outlook on how the oceans affect our lives. Oceanography is a multidisciplinary area of exploration. It includes specialists who come out of all of the sciences, most importantly, geology, physics, chemistry, biology, meteorology, climatology and paleontology. The exploration of the world’s marine environments deals with many phenomena which we are just beginning to understand. These include climate change, plate tectonics, ocean circulation, marine biology and ecol
Oceanography is an interdisciplinary science in which researchers from diverse fields focus on the broad goal of understanding the ocean. Oceanography includes the study of the ocean’s physical, biological, chemical, and geological characteristics. Physical oceanographers study the ocean’s circulation, currents, waves, and tides. Biological oceanographers investigate marine organisms and their relationship to the environment. Chemical oceanographers analyze the chemical composition of sea water and the cycling of nutrients through the ocean system. Marine geologists explore the geologic features of the coastal zone and the ocean floor, and the processes that have formed those features. Engineers are also involved in oceanography, as they must design and plan equipment for use at sea. So too are policy makers, who enact environmental laws and regulations concerning the use and conservation of the ocean and its resources. History of ocean exploration The birth of oceanography as a formal
Oceanography is the study of the deep sea and shallow coastal oceans: biology, chemistry, geology and physics together make oceanography a richly interdisciplinary science. Although they contain most of the Earth’s water and carbon and surface heat, and much of its biomass, the oceans do not operate alone. Together with the atmosphere, continents and ice-cover (the cryosphere), they form a working machine, driven mostly by energy from the sun. Lesser amounts of energy derive from tides raised by the moon and sun and planets, and heat from the Earth”s interior. Oceanographers aim their work at both practical problems and basic scientific discovery. In the area of human health, for example, the oceans provide threats: they spawn and energize storms and hurricanes, endangering coastal populations (more than of the worlds’ population live within 50 km of the sea). Yet they also provide a bountiful diversity of food, are the reservoir of our water supply and most of the heat and carbon of t
