Challenger expedition

Book review – Full Fathom 5000: The Expedition of HMS Challenger and the Strange Animals It Found in the Deep Sea

8-minute read
keywords: history of science, marine biology, oceanography

The 1872–1876 expedition of HMS Challenger invented the science of oceanography. I previously discussed this remarkable voyage in my review of Doug Macdougall’s Endless Novelties of Extraordinary Interest. Since that book nourished but did not yet sate my curiosity, I vowed to read Full Fathom 5000, a promise I am making good on here. Focusing on the wondrous animals the expedition brought up from the deep, this engagingly written book provides a welcome additional angle.

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Book review – Endless Novelties of Extraordinary Interest: The Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger and the Birth of Modern Oceanography

8-minute read
keywords: history of science, oceanography

If you have any interest in oceanography and its history, you will have heard of the Challenger expedition. An early example of government-funded big science, it saw a crew of six scientists and more than 250 sailors and officers of the British Navy aboard HMS Challenger circumnavigate the globe during a 3½-year expedition from late 1872 to 1876. Focused on deep-sea exploration, it is considered the birth of oceanography. But given it was not the first nor the last oceangoing expedition, why has this one achieved such legendary status? Here, earth scientist Doug Macdougall discusses its many and diverse discoveries and shows how scientists have since built on them.

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Book review – The Brilliant Abyss: True Tales of Exploring the Deep Sea, Discovering Hidden Life and Selling the Seabed

7-minute read

Marine biologist Helen Scales returns for her third book with Bloomsbury’s popular science imprint Bloomsbury Sigma. After shells and fish, she now drags the reader down into the darkest depths of the deep sea. Both a beautifully written exploration of the ocean’s otherworldly wonders and a searing exposé of the many threats they face, The Brilliant Abyss is Scales’s most strident book to date.

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Book review – Marvelous Microfossils: Creators, Timekeepers, Architects

5-minute read

Say fossils and what comes to mind are the big, the bad, and the sexy: dinosaurs, pterosaurs, marine reptiles—in short, macrofossils. But perhaps more important and certainly more numerous are the microfossils. Fossils so small that you need a microscope to see them. In this richly illustrated book, French geologist and micropalaeontologist Patrick De Wever offers bite-sized insights into a discipline that rarely gets mainstream attention but undergirds many human endeavours.

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