History of Oceanography

Question 1

When is migration throughout the Southwestern Pacific thought to have begun?

Answer 1

2500 BC

Question 2

When did the Polynesians successfully reach the Hawaiian Islands?

Answer 2

Probably between 450 to 600 AD

Question 3

Near the equator which direction to the stars appear to travel on a north to south axis?

Answer 3

East to west

Question 4

Who began to catalog marine organisms?

Answer 4

Aristotle

Question 5

Who in 270 to 190 BC calculated the Earth’s circumference to be 40,250 km only 183 km off of the actual circumference?

Answer 5

Eratosthenes

Question 6

Who created the first world atlas and established world boundaries?

Answer 6

Ptolemy

Question 7

Where did the Vikings reach in 871?

Answer 7

Iceland

Question 8

Where did Erik Thorvaldsen discover in 982?

Answer 8

Greenland

Question 9

Who created the 1769 Franklin-Folger chart of the Gulf Stream current?

Answer 9

Benjamin Franklin

Question 10

When was the US Naval Hydrographic Office set up?

Answer 10

1830

Question 11

Lieutenant Matthew F. Maury produced the first what in 1847?

Answer 11

Wind and current charts of the North Atlantic

Question 12

Who created the still generally accepted atoll formation theory?

Answer 12

Charles Darwin

Question 13

Edward Forbes began a what around the British Isles and Mediterranean and Aegean Seas?

Answer 13

Systematic survey of Marine life

Question 14

Who mistakenly theorized the environment below 550 m was without life?

Answer 14

Edward Forbes

Question 15

Who tested theories on ocean current by freezing a vessel and floating with it?

Answer 15

Fridtjof Nansen

Question 16

When was NOAA formed?

Answer 16

1970

Question 17

When was the ten year International Decade of Ocean Exploration?

Answer 17

1970’s

Question 18

Who was the first European explorer to reach India?

Answer 18

Vasco De Gama

Question 19

Where was Vasco de Gama from?

Answer 19

Portugal

Question 20

Who led the first expedition that successfully circumnavigated the globe?

Answer 20

Ferdinand Magellan

Question 21

Who was the first to round the Cape of Good Hope?

Answer 21

Bartolomeu Dias

Question 22

Who was the first European explorer to reach Central America?

Answer 22

Christopher Columbus

Question 23

Where was Columbus from? Who sponsored his exploration?

Answer 23

Genoa, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain

Question 24

What French explorer led 3 expeditions to Canada in search of the Northwest Passage?

Answer 24

Jacques Cartier

Question 25

Who was the first European to set foot in Florida?

Answer 25

Ponce de Leon

Question 26

Who was a Portuguese Prince and patron of explorers.

Answer 26

Henry the Navigator

Question 27

Who developed a recognizable map of the Mediterranean region in 450 BCE?

Answer 27

Herodotus

Question 28

Who published the first chart of the Gulf Stream? What year?

Answer 28

Benjamin Franklin, 1770

Question 29

Who discovered the shipwrecked Titanic, and in what year?

Answer 29

Dr. Robert Ballard, 1985

Question 30

Which man invented the first bathyscaphe in 1937?

Answer 30

Auguste Piccard

Question 31

Which man took a bathyscaphe to the bottom of the Marianas Trench on January 23, 1960?

Answer 31

Jacques Piccard (Son of Auguste Piccard)

Question 32

Which person is famous for her books Silent Spring and The Sea Around Us, which brought attention to DDT and other toxic chemicals?

Answer 32

Rachael Carson

Question 33

Which submarine was the first to sink a warship?

Answer 33

H.L. Hunley. Part of Confederate Army.

Question 34

What happened to the USS Thresher?

Answer 34

The submarine was traveling along a pychnocline and was caught by an internal wave. The wave pushed it down to depth and it imploded.