The world's oceans cover 71% of the planet's surface, yet we've more thoroughly mapped the surface of Mars than we have the ocean floor.
At the recent opening of an exhibit about exploring unseen parts of the ocean at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), Investor Ray Dalio put the ocean's immensity into perspective.
"The deepest part [of the ocean] is about as high as the highest land," Dalio, who funds ocean exploration through his philanthropic organization, said.
All that water is full of things to discover. Earth's oceans contain fascinating geology and life in unlikely places, including tiny creatures that produce at least 50% of the oxygen we breathe.
Plus, there are far more organisms that we haven't encountered.
"We still know so little about the ocean," John Sparks, the curator in charge of the AMNH's department of ichthyology, said at the exhibit opening. But thanks to new technologies, our understanding of Earth's oceans is changing rapidly. Scientists have found everything from microorganisms that could help provide cures for disease to fish that live deeper than we thought anything could survive.
For thousands of years, humanity had limited options for exploring the ocean. For the most part, we literally skimmed the surface, though people have had impressive capabilities in that regard for quite a while. (Early humans may have reached Australia 65,000 years ago.) Ocean explorers also dove as deep as they could without breathing devices — and could reach surprising depths in that way.
People didn't start exploring the depths of the ocean until fairly recently, yet there were some impressive early underwater ships. Here are some of the vessels humans have used to explore the ocean, starting long ago and going up to the present day.
The first submersile to travel underwater was reportedly created in 1620 by Dutch inventor Cornelius Drebbel. He demonstrated the vehicle for King James I in the Thames River.
Underwater vehicles and devices used to explore the ocean — rather than for military purposes — tend to be called submersiles. The term generally refers to vessels that don't need a support vehicle.
Reportedly, Drebbel's submersile could stay underwater for about three hours, going down about 15 feet (4 meters).
American inventor David Bushnell built the "Turtle" in 1775. The underwater vessel was used to try to attach explosives to British ships in New York Harbor.
Named the "American Turtle," Bushnell designed and built the vessel in Connecticut as a machine for carrying gunpowder underwater to blow up enemy ships. In the depiction above, its first mission is manned by Sergeant Ezra Lee, who is shown opening the hatch after an unsuccessful attack. The auger visible in the image was used to drill charges into ships' wooden hulls.
While we've mostly focused on underwater vessels used for exploration in this list, the fact that many consider the Turtle the first submarine (since records of the Drebbel are so scant) made it worthy of inclusion. The Turtle could go about 15 feet underwater (4 meters).
Naturalist William Beebe and engineer Otis Barton created the Bathysphere in 1930. The device was lowered by a cable into the ocean in Bermuda.
Beebe and Barton conducted a series of dives with the Bathysphere between 1930 and 1934, setting a depth record of 1 kilometer (3,028 feet)in August 1934. This allowed Beebe to make the first observations of deep-sea life in its own habitat.
Before this, the deepest humans had ever gone underwater was around 525 feet. For that, people used an atmospheric diving suit that was armored to protect against the pressure.
For every 10 meters (33 feet) you go underwater, pressure increases by about 1 atmosphere, a measure of Earth's air pressure at sea level. That means 10 meters down, pressure is double what it is at sea level. One kilometer down, pressure is 100 times what it would be at sea level.
To withstand those forces, Barton designed a spherical submersile made of steel with windows made of three-inch thick quartz.
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