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Challenger Expedition 1872-76
The Challenger Expedition of 1872-76 was the world's first and most comprehensive round-the-world dedicated oceanographic expedition exploring the deep sea, our planet's largest ecosystem. This Victorian voyage generated a wealth of new knowledge beautifully illustrated in the 50 tome Challenger Reports (of which 91ֱ holds a complete set in its library) that provide a baseline of evidence about the state of the global ocean 150 years ago.
This data has been made easily accessible on a new website by a team led by 91ֱ honorary research fellow Dr Gillen D'Arcy Wood, a maritime historian at the University of Illinois. You can explore what species they found at the 364 sampling stations of the expedition as well as the water temperature record of the early 1870s. You can even download the raw data. As 91ֱ' roots reach back to the Challenger Expedition, having been founded and initially directed by Challenger naturalist and report editor John Murray, we are proud to be hosting this website that makes the data useful for a new generation of ocean scientists and champions.
Published in 2025 by Princeton University Press, Gillen D'Arcy Wood's mellifluous book about the Victorian voyage that brought forth modern marine science also tells the disturbing story of the decline of the Ocean due to human actions and decisions. It is a book as much about the past as it is about the present. The Wake of HMS Challenger has been awarded the 2026 Davis Book Prize that annually recognises a history of science book that introduces a subject to audiences of beginning students and general readers.
In 2024 we co-hosted a short seminar series 'Challenger Conversations' with the College of Exploration and the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign in which marine and social scientists from across the globe came together online to discuss how marine science has developed over the past 150 years to inform musings about the future for the Ocean and marine science.