Marine area studied is significantly worse than that of the continents. The scarce knowledge of the oceans has only grown in recent decades due to the rapid growth of technology. And this despite the fact that the ocean is covered by three quarters (71%) and more The Earth!
Even in ancient times, people do not blindly worship the sea, and tried to understand its secrets. Phoenicians, Egyptians, Greeks, Chinese, and other peoples living on the coast, had a fairly complete picture not only of the nearby, but very remote waters, islands and archipelagos. Accumulation literally "bit by bit" of this kind of information about the sea created the preconditions for Discovery, which bind to such illustrious names as Vasco da Gama, X. Columbus, Magellan, F. et al.
Parallel gathering information about the new overseas territories expanded human knowledge about the structure of the ocean, his "underwater kingdom." In 1664 the German scientist A. Kircher was the first map of sea currents, based on observations of many seafarers. A significant contribution to knowledge about the oceans have Newton, Bernoulli, P. Laplace, and other scientists who have developed, in particular, the theory of tides and waves. We note in particular the contribution of Russian scientists E. Lenz and E. Parrott, who invented the water bottle and glubokomer for measuring hydrostatic pressure and depth. Wide hydrological, biological and climatic research carried out in the open ocean are Russian sailors as Vitus Bering, Yu Lisyanskii, O. Kotzebue, F. Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev, F. Litke, Makarov et al.
However, this era of "great oceanographic discoveries" began in the postwar years. Soviet scientists have discovered the presence of life at the maximum depths for special organisms - pogonophores opened vast underwater ridges, according to Academician Lavrent'ev is kind of waveguides along which the long-distance spread tsunami. Outstanding discoveries made ??and foreign scientists. Was created a harmonious concept of motion of large lithospheric plates that shed light on the mechanism of movement of the continents. It turned out that the plates as if floating on a soft bed, lying at a depth of about 100 km. This discovery was preceded by deep drilling of the ocean floor, produced with the American vessel "Glomar Chellenzher" with the participation of Soviet specialists. The sensation was that the lessons from a depth of 2 km of rock in geological terms were too young, whereas the lifetime of the Ocean has a few billion years. Before the expedition natural question arose: where disappeared earlier deposits? Opinion of the scientists were unanimous: they were deformed and buried under molten substance leaking from the earth at the location of the giant ocean ridges.
It is well known that due to the photosynthetic activity of marine plant organisms Oceans remains one of the most important sources of free oxygen in the atmosphere and hydrosphere. However, the mechanism of "supply" of oxygen Ocean conceals many mysteries. Based on satellite data obtained by the ship "Apollon16" American scientists made ??the surprising finding that most of the oxygen gas in the world is not formed as a result of plant photosynthesis, and as a result of decay of the water vapor in the upper atmosphere. If this conclusion is confirmed, it can "flip" all our ideas about the main source of free oxygen of Earth's atmosphere.
Unique discoveries were made in the study of the rock mass of the World Ocean. One of them is related to the discovery of unique underwater sound channels through which sound can propagate for thousands of kilometers. Equally surprising property of the ocean waters has made it possible to transmit information over long distances. Another finding concerns variability of ocean currents: it turned out that they differ extreme variability, and their distribution in the area formed a giant water vortex dimensions of hundreds of kilometers. Such vortex motion, called synoptic, full of power in a similar cyclone atmosphere and is also affected by the weather. Probably, their careful study can significantly bring scientists to more accurately predict weather on Earth.
Deep and detailed study of the mysteries of the ocean can bring enormous benefits to mankind. This is precisely the essence of the problems posed in the title of the topic.
The accumulation of knowledge about the ocean