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Robert Duane Ballard Ph.D. (born June 30, 1942) is a famous oceanographer most noted for his work in underwater archaeology. He is most famous for the discoveries of the wrecks of the RMS Titanic in 1985 and the battleship Bismarck in 1989.
Early life
Robert D. Ballard was born in Wichita, Kansas in 1942 and grew up in Pacific Beach, San Diego, California. Ballard has attributed his early interest in underwater exploration to reading the novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , living by the ocean in San Diego and his fascination with the groundbreaking expeditions of the bathyscaphe Trieste.
In 1965, Ballard graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara, earning undergraduate degrees in chemistry and geology. After getting married, Ballard began working full time for Andreas Rechnitzer's Ocean Systems Group at North American Aviation. Ballard had worked at North American Aviation since 1962 when his father, Chet Ballard, the chief engineer at North American Aviation's Minuteman missile program, helped him get part-time jobs. When Ballard first joined North American, he worked with Rechnitzer on North American's failed proposal to build the submersible Alvin for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
While a student in Santa Barbara, California, he completed the US Army's ROTC program and got an Army commission. His first graduate degree (MS, 1966) was in geophysics from the University of Hawaii Institute of Geophysics where he trained porpoises and whales to make a living. After getting married, Ballard began working again for Andreas Rechnitzer's Ocean Systems Group at North American Aviation.
Ballard was working towards a Ph.D. in marine geology at the University of Southern California in 1967, when he was called to active duty. Upon his request, Ballard was transferred into the US Navy as an oceanographer. The Navy assigned Ballard as a liaison between the Office of Naval Research and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
After leaving the Navy in 1970, Ballard continued working at Woods Hole persuading organizations and people, mostly scientists, to fund and use Alvin for undersea research. Four years later Ballard received a Ph.D. in marine geology and geophysics at the University of Rhode Island.
Early expeditions
Working with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Ballard's first dive in a submersible was in the Ben Franklin in 1969 off the coast of Florida. Later in the summer of 1970, Ballard began a field mapping project of the Gulf of Maine for his doctoral dissertation. The project used an air gun that sent shock waves underwater to determine the underlying structure of the ocean floor and the submersible Alvin which was used to find and recover a sample from the bedrock.
During the summer of 1975, Ballard was over the Mid-Atlantic Ridge participating in a joint French-American expedition called Project FAMOUS. Project FAMOUS was a detailed study of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge portion of the Mid-ocean ridge. It was on this expedition that, on August 5, Ballard was able to ride down in a bathyscaphe for his first time.
Ballard was the first American to dive down to the Mid-ocean ridge; however his trip was cut short due to an electrical fire. Some time after the bathyscaphe Archimède reached the bottom, it lurched upward and the capsule began filling with smoke. After turning off the oxygen to stop the fire, Ballard and his crew mates used the emergency breathing units, but Ballard's oxygen was not turned on. When Ballard tried to tell his companions by taking off his mask they thought he was panicking and tried to force the mask back on. Ballad was able to make a diver's hand signal that indicated he wasn't getting any air. His companions figured out Ballard's problem and turned on his oxygen and safely made it back to the surface.
Continuing research into the mid-ocean ridge, in 1977 Ballard was asked to be co-scientist with Richard von Herzon on an expedition to the Galápagos Rift off the coast of the Galápagos Islands. Ballard was asked to join the Galápagos Hydrothermal Expedition not because of his knowledge in hydrothermal research, but for his experience with submersibles in volcanic terrain. The mission's goal was to find evidence of volcanic activity and seafloor spreading. During the expedition hydrothermal vents were discovered and, to the surprise of the scientists, the vents were surrounded by marine life. Two years later Ballard co-led a second expedition with biologist Fred Grassle to examine the ecosystem.
The expedition which was featured on the National Geographic Society television special Dive to the Edge of Creation, determined that hydrogen sulfide coming out of the vents provided conditions for bacteria which fed animals that lived by the vents. They discovered various new species including new types of crabs and tube worms.
In April 1979 the Wood Hole Institute team, including Ballard, joined the rest of a joint American-French expedition west of Mexico in the East Pacific Rise section of the mid-ocean ridge. The year before Ballard had joined the French led team at the site, diving in the submersible Cyana, where they searched for hydrothermal vents, but the expedition did not find any active vents. The 1979 expedition was aided by deep-towed still camera sleds that were able to take pictures of the ocean floor making it easier to find the vent locations.
When Alvin searched one of the sites they located, the scientists observed black smoke billowing out of the vents, something not observed at the Galápagos Rift. Ballard and geophysicist Jean Francheteau went down in Alvin the day after the black smokers were first observed. They were able to take an accurate temperature reading of the active vent, the previous dive's thermometer had melted, and recorded 350 °C (662 °F). Ballard and Francheteau continued searching for more vents along the East Pacific Rise between 1980 and 1982.
Marine archaeology
While Ballard had been interested in the sea since an early age, his work at Woods Hole and his SCUBA diving experiences off Massachusetts spurred his interest in shipwrecks, and their exploration. His work in the Navy had involved assisting the development of small, unmanned submersibles which could be tethered to, and controlled from a surface ship, while being outfitted with lighting, cameras, and manipulator arms. As early as 1973, Ballard saw this as way of searching for the wreck of Titanic. In 1977, he led his first expedition, which was unsuccessful.
RMS Titanic
In the summer of 1985, Ballard was aboard the French research ship Le Suroit which was using the revolutionary new side scan sonar to find Titanic's wreck. When the French ship was recalled, Ballard transferred onto a ship from Woods Hole: the Knorr. Unbeknownst to some, this trip was being financed by the U.S. Navy, and it would be doing secret reconnaissance of the wreckage of the USS Scorpion, a nuclear submarine that had sunk nearby. Afterwards, Ballard was free to hunt for Titanic.The Knorr arrived on site on August 22, 1985, and deployed Argo. Argo was an unmanned submersible that could be deployed in deep water. Ballard's plan was to "sweep" Argo back and forth across the ocean bottom, not looking for a ship, but instead looking for debris. Many Titanic experts had long held that as the ship sank, it would have rained debris down on the ocean floor. Ballard's team took shifts monitoring the video feed from Argo, as it began its search of the monotonous ocean floor two miles below.
In the early morning hours of September 1, 1985, observers noted changes to the usually unchanging ocean floor. At first, it was pockmarks, as if small craters from impacts. Eventually debris was sighted as the rest of the team was awakened. Finally, a boiler was sighted, and soon after the hull itself was found.
Ballard's team made a general search of the vessel's exterior, and noted its condition, including the confirmation that Titanic had in fact split in two, and that the stern was in far worse shape than the rest of the ship. Ballard's team did not have much time to explore, as others were waiting to take Knorr on other scientific pursuits, but his fame was now assured. Ballard also had originally planned to keep the exact location a secret to prevent anyone from claiming prizes from the wreck. Ballard considered the site a cemetery, and refused to desecrate it by removing artifacts from the wreck.
On July 12, 1986, Ballard and his team returned to make the first detailed study of the wreck. This time, Ballard brought Alvin, a deep diving submersible which could hold a small crew. Alvin was accompanied by Jason Junior, a small remotely operated vehicle which could fit through small openings to see into the ship's interior. While the first dive (taking over two hours to dive down) saw technical problems, subsequent dives were far more successful, and produced a detailed photographic record of the wreck's condition. Recent reports have indicated that the Titanic sank faster than previously believed, in response to this Ballard is quoted as saying 'It hit an iceberg and sank. Get over it'.
Ballard undertook an even more daunting task when he and his team went searching for the Bismarck. The water in which she sank is 4,000 feet deeper then where the Titanic sank. Ballard tried to solve the mystery of what exactly sank the mighty German battleship. Was she sunk by the British or scuttled by her own crew? During this expedition, personal tragedy struck the famed explorer. His 21 year old son Todd, who aided his father in the search, was killed in a car accident.
Ballard and his team have also visited the sites of many wrecks of WW2 in the Pacific. His book "Lost Ships Of Guadalcanal" locates and photographs many of the vessels sunk in the infamous "Iron Bottom Sound", the strait between Guadalcanal Island and the Floridas in the Solomon Islands.
Institute for Exploration
In the 1990's Ballard founded the Institute for Exploration, which specializes in deep-sea archaeology and deep-sea geology. It joined forces in 1999 with the Mystic Aquarium located in Mystic, Connecticut. They are a part of the non-profit Sea Research Foundation, Inc.Black Sea
In a series of expeditions, a team of marine archeologists led by Ballard identified what appeared to be ancient shorelines, freshwater snail shells, drowned river valleys, tool-worked timbers, and man-made structures in roughly 300 feet (100 m) of water off the Black Sea coast of modern Turkey. Radiocarbon dating of freshwater mollusk remains indicated an age of about 7,000 years.According to a report in New Scientist magazine (May 4, 2002, p. 13), the researchers found an underwater delta south of the Bosporus. There was evidence for a strong flow of fresh water out of the Black Sea in the 8th millennium BCE. Ballard's research has granted credence to the Black Sea deluge theory.
Other works
Television
Ballard has participated in numerous educational programs on PBS, National Geographic, the BBC, NHK (Japan), ZDF (Germany), and the major television networks in the United States of America. During the first season of seaQuest DSV (1993-1994) he gave short presentations on marine trivia during the credits.Academics
In 2004, Dr. Ballard was appointed professor of oceanography at the Graduate School of Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island.Note
References
- Biography: Robert D. Ballard, Ph.D.. Academy of Achievement.
- List of University of Hawaii alumni (Source: Academy of Achievement)
"Robert Ballard"