The ''Albatross'' expedition (''Albatrossexpeditionen'') was a Swedish

oceanographic Oceanography (), also known as oceanology, sea science, ocean science, and marine science, is the scientific study of the ocean, including its physics, chemistry, biology, and geology. It is an Earth science, which covers a wide range of top ...

expedition that between July 4, 1947, and October 3, 1948, sailed around the world during 15 months covering 45 000 nautical miles. The expedition is considered the second largest Swedish research expedition after the ''Vega'' expedition. The expedition was very successful, received international attention, and is considered one of the important steps in the history of oceanography.

The ''Albatross''

The expedition was carried out on board the newly built training ship ''Albatross''. The 70 meter long and 11 meter wide vessel was a combined motor and sailing vessel. The Boström line (''Broströmskoncernen'') had just built the student ship to train prospective ship's officers and this vessel with associated crew was lent to the expedition. Since the Boström line lent the ship at almost no cost, the expedition could be financed and carried out with only private donations. The leader of the expedition was Swedish physicist and oceanographer Hans Pettersson. The main task of the expedition was to take up to 20 m long sediment cores from the ocean floor. This was made using a newly developed corer, known as piston sampler, developed by Börje Kullenberg. Until then the longest cores that could be taken were 2 m. The expedition also carried out the first seismic reflection measurements of the sediment thickness, using sink bombs. The results of the sediment studies were ground-breaking since they revealed that the sediment thickness increased away from the mid-oceanic ridges, along with the sediment accumulation time. This was one of several pieces of evidence that eventually led to the acceptance of the theory of

plate tectonics Plate tectonics (, ) is the scientific theory that the Earth's lithosphere comprises a number of large tectonic plates, which have been slowly moving since 3–4 billion years ago. The model builds on the concept of , an idea developed durin ...

. Apart from sediments, the expedition looked at

biology Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...

. The first deep sea trawling, at 7 600-7 900 m depth, revealed that those depths were not the dead zone that previously had been the accepted view.Reinke-Kunze, Christine. (1994) Welt der Forschungsschiffe. DSV-Verlag GmbH, Hamburg.

Notes

Other sources

*Hans Pettersson (1950) ''Med Albatross över havsdjupen'' (Stockholm: Bonnier) *Eric Olausson (1996) ''The Swedish Deep-Sea Expedition with the "Albatross" 1947-1948'' (Novum, Grafiska AB) {{DEFAULTSORT:Albatross Expedition Oceanography Science and technology in Sweden Oceanographic expeditions Expeditions from Sweden