Challenger Expedition

The Challenger Expedition of 1872 to 1876 was a British circumnavigation aboard the converted Royal Navy corvette HMS Challenger that founded modern oceanography. Over nearly 70,000 nautical miles the scientists, led by Charles Wyville Thomson, took soundings, dredged the seabed, measured temperature and salinity, and catalogued thousands of new species, including the first sounding of the Mariana Trench area. The 50-volume report became the foundation of deep-sea science. The voyage established systematic survey at sea as a discipline.