Earth & SkyGreek → English
Bathymetry
/bəˈθɪmɪtri/noun
The measurement and mapping of the shape of the sea floor.
The Greek roots
βαθύς
bathýs
deep
μέτρον
métron
measure
Literally: “deep measuring”
The story of the word
Before echo sounding, a depth meant a weighted line paid out by hand over the rail. The Challenger expedition of the 1870s spent three and a half years at sea and came home with soundings at a few hundred points, which was the state of the science. Sonar in the 1920s turned single dots into continuous profiles, and submarine warfare paid for most of the charting that followed.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
bathyspherebathyscaphebathosisobath
In a sentence
The bathymetry off the shelf edge drops away faster than the chart colours suggest.
Multibeam bathymetry found the wreck sitting upright in 900 metres.