A Short Human History of the Ocean Floor

It could be argued that representations are the key to understanding human actions. It is our inner picture of the sea floor that makes things happen – whatever picture that is. The more so since the ocean floor is not directly accessible to us in any way – we depend on representations. So let us start this human history of the ocean floor reminding ourselves that our object of study is not direct accessible and that our impressions of the sea floor is always mediated in one way or another: by different technologies, by science or by literature or cultural traditions. Science came to play an important role in overtaking earlier guesswork and anecdotes about the sea floor. But even scientific views were changing. It suffices to remember the ridicule Alfred Wegener (1880–1930) was subjected to with his theory of continental drift from 1912. Not to mention the fascinating story of the cartographer Marie Tharp (1920–2003) and her detailed drawings of the ocean floor that finally contributed to the breakthrough of plate tectonics in the late 1960s and restored Wegener’s ideas. The representations developed afterwards combined with all sort of technological devices have made the ocean floor a place for a great variety of claims and hunt for resources. In this chapter, I will try to establish something that could be called a human history of the sea floor. A place so inaccessible requires other means and ways to figure out the relation between humans and the deep sea. It is important to acknowledge that the representation of the seafloor is the most important element in this history. Secondly that the resources and their regulations always have been based on these representation. As time flows these have shifted and varied. Science has come to play an important part as have real examination of the sea floor. This chapter is an overview, too short of details and modifications, but it might be an introduction to an area very few have seen, but still covers almost 5⁄7 of the Earth’s surface.1