The Mediterranean was a Desert: A Voyage of the Glomar Challenger

by Kenneth J. Hsü

The famous geological research ship Glomar Challenger was a radically new instrument that revolutionized earth science in the same sense that the cyclotron revolutionized nuclear physics, and its deep-sea drilling voyages, conducted from 1968 through 1983, were some of the great scientific adventures of our time. Beginning with the vessel's first cruises, which lent support to the idea of continental drift, the Challenger played a key part in the widely publicized plate-tectonics revolution and its challenge to more conventional theories. Here the leading oceanographer and earth scientist Kenneth Hs offers an intensely personal account of the experiences of the ship's diverse crews--the sailors, drillers, marine technicians, and scientists who braved not only the ocean's resistance to surrendering its secrets but also the difficulties of balky machinery, physical illness, close quarters, and all-too-human temperaments. But the intellectual rewards of the journeys also abounded, and Hs is the ideal writer to convey the excitement with which he and other crew scientists pursued them. The quintessential insider, he offers biographical sketches, humorous anecdotes, background information from the history of geology, and excerpts from the ship's daily operational report--all skillfully combined with a narrative history of the ship's explorations in the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian oceans and the polar seas.

Genres: Science

216 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1983

Reviews

[Cade]

This was not exactly a page-turner, but it was short and sweet. I liked the stories about the technical problems of drilling and locating their position. The idea that the Mediterranean was a desert was not new to me, but it was interesting to hear how the evidence built to convince the original scientists that they had indeed proved the point. There are quite a few pictures, but some color plates would have been really nice for some of them.

[Signa Pendegraft]

Great book as was Noah's Flood: both having been on Glomar Challenger.