Wikipedia Public Domain Image

1951

Deepest Ocean Point Found

The British ship HMS Challenger bounces sound waves off the ocean bottom and locates what appears to be the sea's deepest point. With a depth of 35,856 feet (10,929 meters), it is named the Challenger Deep. Located off the coast of the Marianas Islands in the Pacific Ocean, the site is known today as the Mariana Trench. This trench is so deep that if you could put Mount Everest on the ocean floor, its summit would lie about a mile below the ocean surface.

Wikipedia Public Domain Image

1953

Discovery of Mid-Atlantic Ridge

American geologist Marie Tharp studies sounding profiles from the Atlantic Ocean and discovers a rift valley. Later studies reveal it to be a continuous rift extending over 40,000 nautical miles (64,373 kilometers) along the ocean floor. This discovery provides evidence for the newly formed theory of continental drift, known today as plate tectonics.

Esby / CC BY 2.0

February 15, 1954

Untethered Submersible Dive Record

The French submersible FNRS-3 sets a new record for an untethered deep sea dive as she descends to a depth of 13,290 feet (4,050 meters). The historic dive takes place in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Senegal in West Africa. The FNRS-3 submersible is currently on display in Toulon, a city on the French Riviera and a large port on the Mediterranean coast.

Wikipedia Public Domain Image

1955

Magnetic Striping Discovered

In a joint project with the U.S. Navy and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the Coast and Geodetic Survey Ship Pioneer tows the first marine magnetometer and discovers magnetic striping on the sea floor off the west coast of the United States. This discovery proves that the sea floor is spreading, providing significant credibility to the theory of plate tectonics.

Wikipedia Public Domain Image

January 23, 1960

Deepest Ocean Dive

Jacques Piccard, son of explorer August Piccard, and two other men descend into the ocean to a depth of 35,797 feet (10,911 meters), nearly seven miles. They make the trip in the Trieste, a sturdy underwater vehicle known as a bathyscaphe. Trieste was designed by Piccard and built several years earlier. The divers discover fish and other amazing deep-sea life at these tremendous depths.

1961

Tow System Developed

The Scripps Institution of Oceanography begins development of the Deep Tow System. This sonar system becomes the forerunner of all remotely-operated and unmanned oceanographic systems today.

1962

First Underwater Habitat

Several experiments are conducted whereby people live in underwater habitats. The researchers leave the habitat for exploration and return again for food, sleep, and relaxation. The habitats are supplied by compressed air from the surface. In the first such experiment, Conshelf (Continental Shelf) One, Jacques Cousteau and his team spend seven days under 33 feet of water near Marseilles, France, in a habitat they name Diogenes.

NOAA Photo Library / CC BY 2.0

1963

First Multibeam Sounding

The first operational multibeam sounding system is installed on the USNS Compass Island. This system observes a number of sounding beams to the left and right of a ship's head as well as vertically. This allows the development of a relatively accurate map of the sea floor as the ship proceeds on a survey line.

NOAA Public Domain Image

1964

Deep Sea Submersible Alvin

Alvin, a new deep submergence vehicle, is constructed by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. It is the first U.S. deep diving submersible and the first deep-sea submersible capable of carrying passengers. Later that year, Alvin explores the Cayman Trough, the deepest point in the Caribbean Sea. Alvin becomes one of the most famous deep sea vehicles, making over 4,000 dives during its lifetime.

NOAA Public Domain Image

July 20, 1964

Sealab 1 Deployed

Sealab 1 is the first experimental underwater habitat developed by the Navy to research the psychological and physiological strain of extended periods spent living and working underwater. It is deployed off the coast of Bermuda at a depth of 192 feet (59 meters) below the ocean surface. Sealab 1 proves that saturation diving in the open ocean is viable for extended periods. It is currently on display at the Museum of Man in the Sea, in Panama City Beach, Florida

U.S. Navy Photo

1965

First Underwater Robot

The Navy develops the Cable-controlled Underwater Recovery Vehicle (CURV). It is developed by the former Pasadena Annex of the Naval Ordnance Test Station to recover test ordnance lost off San Clemente Island at depths as great as 2,000 feet (610 meters). It is designed to find and retrieve torpedoes it used in tests and training but becomes famous in 1966 when it recovers an H-bomb off Spain in 2,800 feet (853 meters) of water.

U.S. Navy Public Domain Image

October 1, 1965

Sealab 2 Deployed

Sealab 2 is deployed in the La Jolla Canyon off the coast of Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, at a depth of 205 feet (62 meters). It is twice the size of Sealab 1 and is designed to house ten men at a depth of 200 feet (61 meters) for 30 days. It contains heating coils in the deck to ward off the constant helium-induced chill, and air conditioning to reduce humidity.

Public Domain Image

August, 1968

Deep Sea Drilling Program

The deep sea research vessel Glomar Challenger departs on a 15-year expedition known as the Deep Sea Drilling Program. The ship criss-crosses the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between Africa and South America taking core samples. The ages of the samples provide solid evidence for the theory of seafloor spreading, which will eventually give rise to the modern theory of plate tectonics.

NOAA Public Domain Image

January 28, 1969

Tektite Undersea Laboratory Deployed

The Tektite project begins as an underwater laboratory is lowered in to the water in Great Lameshur Bay, Saint John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Designed and built by General Electric Company, Tektite consists of two metal cylinders connected by a flexible tunnel. A team of four divers spend 60 days inside the habitat at a depth of 50 feet (15 meters). During the course of the project, over 60 scientists and engineers will live and work beneath the sea.

Public Domain Image

February 15, 1969

Sealab 3 Deployed

Sealab 3 is deployed off the coast of off San Clemente Island, California at a depth of 610 feet (185 meters). It uses the refurbished Sealab 2 habitat and is placed in water three times deeper. The habitat soon begins to leak and four divers are sent to repair it but are unsuccessful. During a second attempt, one of the divers is killed due to a faulty rebreather. It is believed that someone aboard the command barge is trying to sabotage the habitat's air supply. A suspect is identified but never prosecuted. Sealab 3 is retrieved from the ocean floor and scrapped.

Wikipedia Public Domain Image

July 14, 1969

First Long Duration Submersible Expedition

A manned underwater submersible known as the Ben Franklin spends 30 days submerged off the coast of Palm Beach, Florida. A six-member crew led by the vehicle's creator, Jacques Piccard, study the Gulf Stream and travel a total distance of 1,444 miles (2,324 km). The voyage also serves to study the effects of long-term, continuous close confinement for long space flights.

NOAA Public Domain Image

May, 1970

First All-Female Team
of Aquanauts

Celebrated oceanographer Dr. Sylvia Earle leads the first all-female team of oceanographers on a research mission aboard the Tektite underwater laboratory. The mission lasts two weeks at a depth of 50 feet (15 meters) in the U.S. Virgin Islands' Great Lameshur Bay. The aquanauts spend an average of 12 hours in the water each day as they researched ecology or coral reef fishes, human physiology and and psychology in extreme environments, and saturation diving.

October 3, 1970

NOAA Established

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is established. It is an American scientific agency within the United States Department of Commerce that focuses on the conditions of the oceans, major waterways, and the atmosphere. NOAA warns of dangerous weather, charts seas, guides the use and protection of ocean and coastal resources and conducts research to provide the understanding and improve stewardship of the environment.