英语翻译The ocean bottom--a region nearly 2.5 times greater than the total land area of the Earth--is a vast frontier that even today is largely unexplored and uncharted.Until about a century ago,the deep-ocean floor was completely inaccessible,h

英语翻译The ocean bottom--a region nearly 2.5 times greater than the total land area of the Earth--is a vast frontier that even today is largely unexplored and uncharted.Until about a century ago,the deep-ocean floor was completely inaccessible,h
英语翻译
The ocean bottom--a region nearly 2.5 times greater than the total land area of the Earth--is a vast frontier that even today is largely unexplored and uncharted.Until about a century ago,the deep-ocean floor was completely inaccessible,hidden beneath waters averaging over 3,600 meters deep.Totally without light and subjected to intense pressures hundreds of times greater than at the Earth's surface,the deep-ocean bottom is s hostile environment to humans,in some way as forbidding and remote as the void of outer space.
Although researchers have taken samples of deep-ocean rocks and sediments for over a century,the first detailed global investigation of the ocean bottom did not actually start until 1968,with the beginning of the National Science Foundation's Deep Sea Drilling Project (DEDP).Using techniques first developed for the offshore oil and gas industry,the DSDP's drill ship,the Glomar Challenger (格拉玛挑战者号),was able to maintain a steady position on the ocean's surface and drill in very deep waters,extracting samples of sediments and rock from the ocean floor.
The Glomar Challenger completed 96 voyages in a 15-year research program that ended in November 1983.During this time,the vessel logged 600,000 kilometers and took almost 20,000 core samples of seabed sediments and rocks at 624 drilling sites around the world.The Glomar Challenger's core samples have allowed geologists to reconstruct what the planet looked like hundreds of millions of years ago and to calculate what it will probably look like millions of years in the future.
Today,largely on the strength of evidence gathered during the Glomar Challengers' voyages,nearly all earth scientists agree on the theories of plate tectonics (构造学) and continental drift that explain many of the geological processes that shape the Earth.
The cores of sediment drilled by the Glomar Challenger have also yielded information critical to understanding the world's past climates.Deep-oceans sediments provided a climatic record stretching back hundreds of millions of years,because they are largely isolated from the mechanical erosion and the intense chemical and biological activity that rapidly destroy much land-based evidence of past climates.This record has already provided insights into the patterns and causes of past climatic change--information that may be used to predict future climates.

英语翻译The ocean bottom--a region nearly 2.5 times greater than the total land area of the Earth--is a vast frontier that even today is largely unexplored and uncharted.Until about a century ago,the deep-ocean floor was completely inaccessible,h
几乎比地球上陆地总面积大2.5倍的大洋底部是一个至今很大一部分仍未被探明的广大区域.直到大约一个世纪以前,掩藏在平均3600米深的海水下的深海底部还是人类无法接近的.完全没有光线和比地面上强大几百倍的压力使得深海底部成为人类的禁地,在某些方面像外太空一样遥远和难以到达.
尽管研究者们一个世纪以前就取得了深海岩石和沉积物的样本,但是直到1968年,随着国家科学基金会的深海科考项目(DEDP)的开始,第一个关于全球大洋底部的研究才真正开展起来.利用最初为海洋石油和天然气工业而开发出来的技术,DEEP的科考船“格拉玛挑战者号”能够停留在大洋表面一个稳定的位置上,对深水进行研究并提取海底沉积物和岩石的标本.
“格拉玛挑战者号”在这个于1983年11月结束的历时15年的研究计划中共进行了96次航行,总航程达60万千米,获得了全球624处海底地点的矿物标本将近2万件.地质学者们依据这些样本能够重构几百万年前地球上的情景并预测数百万年后的将来的变化.
今天,很大程度上凭借“格拉玛挑战者号”航行中收集的证据,几乎所有的地质科学家都赞同可以解释许多地球地质过程的板块构造和大陆飘移学说.
“格拉玛挑战者号”收集的标本中也包含了对了解早期全球气候有借鉴意义的信息.深海的沉积物提供了一份可以延伸数百万年的气候档案,因为他们可以很大程度上避开对记录早期气候的陆地证据造成极大破坏的物理侵蚀,化学剧变和生物活动.这种“档案”已经被用于关于早期气候变化的原因和方式的研究中,由此获得的信息可被用于预报天气.