Challenger expedition 1872-1876
The voyage of HMS Challenger from 1872 to 1876 laid the foundation of oceanography: about 127,600 km around the world, 492 deep-sea soundings and 133 bottom dredges, the first sounding of the Challenger Deep, and some 4,700 new species of marine life.
Dated events and their evidence
- 1872 CE mainstream
21 December: HMS Challenger, refitted at Sheerness with laboratories for natural history and chemistry, sails from Portsmouth under Captain George Nares, with Charles Wyville Thomson leading the science source - 1875 CE mainstream
23 March: near Guam, Challenger records the bottom at 8,184 m, the deepest sounding of the voyage, over what is now called the Challenger Deep source - 1876 CE mainstream
24 May: Challenger returns to Spithead after 713 of 1,250 days at sea, having verified that the Mid-Atlantic Ridge runs from the southern to the northern hemisphere source - 1895 CE mainstream
the last volumes of the Report of the Scientific Results are published, 19 years after the voyage, cataloguing over 4,000 previously unknown species source
Where
50.8181° N, 1.1208° W
The point is OpenStreetMap's position for Portsmouth Harbour, from where HMS Challenger sailed on 21 December 1872; she returned to Spithead, just off Portsmouth, on 24 May 1876. The route itself went around the world.
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenger_expedition
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenger_Deep
- https://doi.org/10.1080/00369227208736231
Each event carries Aion's own evidence grade (mainstream, disputed or speculative). This page repeats what the globe shows for this place.