Geographical discoveries at the beginning of the 20th century. Geographical discoveries of the 21st century: the “Alps” in Antarctica, the “Gulf Stream” in the Barents Sea! Consequences of great geographical discoveries
The history of mankind has many important events, for example, great geographical discoveries (GDOs) played an important role in the history of mankind.
First of all, the data on the geography of the entire territory of the planet changed, new maps were compiled.
Why are great geographical discoveries called great? First of all, because these events led to the establishment of ties between states, as well as the expansion of their territories.
Perhaps not everyone knows the most interesting facts about outstanding discoverers and navigators. How did the discovery of new lands proceed? Let's find out!
The beginning of the era of great geographical discoveries
Before considering the progress of the VGO, it is necessary to understand the main reasons. There are 2 main reasons: the fragmentation of feudal estates (the ruin of their owners) and the increase in the treasury of the rulers.
Conventionally, VGO is divided into two stages: European (15-16 centuries) and Russian (16-20 centuries).
The European period included:
- discovery of America;
- sea route to India (we will introduce who first discovered India below);
- exploration of the Pacific Ocean (discovery of Russia by Europe).
Discovery of Alaska by Russian travelers (Vitus Bering and Alexey Chirikov)
During the Russian period the following events occurred:
- development of North America and Australia;
- development of northern Europe and Asia;
- exploration of the Pacific Ocean.
Below we will consider each period in detail, and also learn many interesting facts. For example, who was the first to reach China or who was the first to circumnavigate Africa.
Great travelers and their geographical discoveries
In the presented table you can see the names of travelers, dates of discoveries, and what exactly happened during that period of time.
| Traveler | date | Opening |
| Marco Polo | 1266 | The first to reach China. He wrote “The Book on the Diversity of the World,” which subsequently made a great impression on many travelers. |
| Bartolomeu Dias | 1488 |
|
| Christopher Columbus | 1492 | America is open. Everyone remembers that Columbus mistook America for the shores of southern India. In 1501, Vespucci discovered Brazil and the mainland of South America, which he named after Columbus (the pioneer). |
| Vasco da Gama | 1498 | He was the first to discover India, the first to circumnavigate Africa. |
| Vasca Nunens Balboa | 1513 |
|
| Ferdinand Magellan | 1519 – 1522 |
|
| Abel Tasman | 1642 – 1643 |
|
Discoveries of Russian travelers
The table contains data about Russian travelers, dates of events are recorded, and a brief description of what was happening during that period of time is given.
| Traveler | date | Opening |
| Sergey Dezhnev | 17th century |
|
| Ivan Moskvitin | 1639 | The Pacific coast is open. |
| Vitus Bering and Alexey Chirikov | 1725 – |
|
| Ivan Krusenstern and Yuri Lisyansky | 1803 – 1806 |
|
| Thaddeus Bellingshausen and Mikhail Lazarev | 1819 | Discovery of the islands of Antarctica. |
| Gennady Nevelskoy | 1849 – 1855 |
|
| Petr Petrovich Semenov-Tyan-Shansky | 1856 |
|
| Nikolai Przhevalsky | 1870 – 1880s |
|
| Boris Vilkitsky | 1910 – |
|
Latest geographical discoveries of the 21st century
Contemporaries reveal the secrets of the last century. Therefore, most of the expeditions explore the territories and waters of Antarctica, the Canary Islands, the waters of the Amazon, the islands between the two continents of America and the territories of the Arctic Ocean.
The Gamburtsev Mountains (Antarctic Alps) are an ancient mountain system in Antarctica. They were discovered in 1958 by Soviet researchers, but remained unexplored for a long time due to inaccessibility.
Consequences of the Great Geographical Discoveries
Discoverers, travelers and sailors made a huge contribution to the history of mankind:
- new lands and countries were discovered;
- new trade routes appeared;
- with the help of VGO, the economy becomes multifaceted;
- Colonization led to the mixing of religions and the socialization of different cultures. Science is beginning to develop around the world;
- The population increases and races mix.
The opinion that all geographical discoveries have long been made and geographers have nothing to provide to the world is incorrect.
Indeed, great geographical discoveries that brought the world knowledge about new continents, large rivers, mountain ranges and countries occurred before the 20th century. But even in the 20th-21st centuries, researchers continue to surprise the world with the discovery of unexplored places on our planet; only the quality and nature of these discoveries have changed. Long journeys across seas and continents gave way to viewing and analyzing space images at the desk. Geographers now have the methods of geophysics and geochemistry, aerial photography, and radar imaging from special satellites at their disposal. The very concept of “geographical discovery” has expanded and now includes not only the study of land and water depths, but also the air, for modern geography is obliged to identify the laws and patterns governing each geographical component and their relationships with each other.
It was in the 20th century that it became possible to determine the exact position of the North and South Poles (1909-1911). Thanks to images from space, geographers were able to spatially orient objects (mountains, rivers), give them a coordinate basis and clear references. The object of close research by geographers are already known rivers and lakes, because many of them have changed their course and moved hundreds of kilometers away from each other and from the reservoirs into which they previously flowed (this trend is observed in the Aral Sea and the Caspian Lake).
Through space photography, it was possible to discover many new high-altitude lakes in the Himalayas and a mountain range in Antarctica, covered with a half-kilometer layer of ice (2009). These mountains, reminiscent of the Alps in their territory and height, but 10 times older (the Alps are about 50 million years old), rise 3 thousand kilometers, and even geographers had no idea about their existence.
New technologies have allowed geographers to approach long-explored areas of the Earth from a different point of view, and this has made it possible to discover cyclic multi-kilometer circles-depressions - nuclear structures. Their research leads scientists to believe that the Earth was once dotted with huge craters and resembled the surface of the Moon.
Other geographical events of the 20th century also changed the world map: the discovery of the Severnaya Zemlya islands (in 1913), the glaciers of the Polar Urals (1925), Taimyr (1970) and Suntar-Khayat (1932), the valley of geysers on the Vitim River (Siberia, in 1983). The 20th century was also marked by discoveries in the World Ocean: new knowledge changed geographers’ ideas about the bed of the Indian and Atlantic Oceans; in 1948, the Lomonosov and Mendeleev mountain ranges (the Arctic Ocean) were discovered.
There are still areas on the world map that have not yet been visited by man and are waiting for their discoverers, for example, the mountains of the Hindu Kush and the Himalayas, the distant regions of Antarctica, and the wilds of the Amazon. There are many tribes and nationalities left on Earth, about which humanity has the vaguest ideas: the modern world knows nothing about their language, culture, and customs. These include the Sentinelese, who live in the Bay of Bengal on an island between Thailand and India. Anthropologists consider them the ancestors of our civilization, who left Africa 60 thousand years ago. The discovery of new species of flora and fauna constantly occurs in the most mysterious country of Papua (New Guinea).
A significant global geographical event was the discovery by Russian scientists of the subglacial Lake Vostok (named after the Vostok research station, which was located on it) in Antarctica. According to rough estimates, the lake is a million years old and during this time it has never come into contact with atmospheric air, being reliably covered with a 4-kilometer thick layer of ice. Is there life in the lake? What happens if lake water comes into contact with air? How to take water samples in such a way as to prevent the water from coming into contact with the modern atmosphere? Behind all these questions lie future discoveries. By studying water samples, scientists hope to accurately reconstruct the Earth's climatic conditions, chemical composition and atmospheric properties even before the appearance of glaciers. If living organisms are found in the lake (and the conditions are quite suitable: +10˚С and the most powerful oxygen saturation of the water - 50 times higher than on the surface of the Earth) - this will become another geographical discovery.
Having the most direct relation to many discoveries of both the 20th and 21st centuries, Deputy Director of the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Professor, Doctor of Geological Sciences, member of the Presidium of the Russian Geographical Society, who devoted his entire life to science, Arkady Tishkov spoke about the most significant geographical discoveries of the past century.
By the beginning of the twentieth century, there were practically no places left on Earth where a geographer had not set foot: the main continents were more or less studied, and contemporaries’ ideas about the world around them were relatively accurately mapped. Thus, for romantic travelers there were fewer and fewer “white spots” left. The latest technologies of geochemistry and geophysics, imaging from space satellites, and aerial photography came to the aid of the inquisitive mind of the researcher. Thanks to this, the concept of “geographical discovery” has expanded significantly and began to include not so much a visual description as an attempt to explain a geographical phenomenon in its entirety and the set of patterns that govern each component of nature separately. Nevertheless, the past century will be remembered by us for the most important geographical discoveries, which significantly expanded the understanding of our home called planet Earth.
"White spot" the size of half of Europe
In 1926, Soviet geologist Sergei Obruchev and geographer-cartographer Konstantin Salishchev discovered the Chersky Ridge in Northeast Siberia. This mountain system has a length of 1,500 km across the territory of Yakutia and the Magadan region, and the highest point - Mount Pobeda - is located at an altitude of more than 3,000 meters.
At the same time, the study of the entire northeast of Russia was underway, which for a long time remained a “blank spot” on the map and was fraught with amazing discoveries. The area is equal to half of Europe. The pioneer who studied this area at the end of the 19th century was Yan (Ivan) Dementievich Chersky.
Photo: Alexander Mekheda, water-rf.ru The expedition lasted six months, and its result was the discovery of an amazing mountainous country, which Obruchev proposed to name in honor of its first brave explorer. At the same time, the cold pole of the Northern Hemisphere was moved from Verkhoyansk to Oymyakon. Now both settlements have this status with an absolute minimum of -67.8°C and -67.7°C, respectively.
Pearl of Kamchatka
In April 1941, one of the largest and most amazing world discoveries took place - the valley of geysers was found in Kamchatka. The discoverers were geologist Tatyana Ustinova and her local guide Ansifor Krupenin. The area was discovered during the study of the Shumnaya River.
The Valley of Geysers represents the canyon of the Geysernaya River, covers an area of 6 km2 and consists of a large number of thermal sites, hot springs, mud pots, lakes and even waterfalls. The unique microclimate has led to abnormally high biological diversity in a limited area.
In the year of discovery, a description of all sources was made. According to the memoirs of Tatyana Ustinova, they were named based on their design features, the power of steam and water emission, the color of the geyserite or other characteristics.
In 2007, the valley was destroyed by a mudflow. Masses of soil blocked the Geysernaya River with a dam and most of the thermal springs were deep under water. Surprisingly, the unique natural object showed excellent self-healing ability. Six years later, a repeated mudflow broke the dam, the valley was cleared and the number of active geysers even increased. The pearl became even more beautiful.
“Vostok” will tell about the history of the Earth
In February 2012, an event occurred that, without exaggeration, had been awaited for decades: in the area of the Russian Vostok research station in Antarctica, scientists drilled into ice almost 4,000 meters thick and discovered a unique lake, hidden from the outside world for 14 million years. The subglacial lake was named “Vostok”.
The existence of the lake was theoretically predicted in the middle of the last century, and the hypothesis was confirmed in 1996. The discovery of the century has led to the emergence of a large number of new questions, the answers to which will have to be sought by researchers of the 21st century. Are there living organisms in the lake? What happens when lake water comes into contact with the modern atmosphere? Are ancient bacteria dangerous for humanity?
Thus, we can confidently say that geographical discoveries, which will, among other things, allow us to reconstruct the history of climate change on Earth, are still ahead.
Mountains in Antarctica
It was previously believed that the landscape of Antarctica was a plain without distinct geological formations. However, in 1958, researchers were in for a pleasant surprise. The third Soviet Antarctic expedition discovered an entire system of subglacial mountains in the central part of East Antarctica. They were named after the Soviet geophysicist and academician Grigory Gamburtsev. The dimensions of the mountain formation practically coincide with the European Alps: length is about 1300 km, width from 200 to 500 km, the highest known points are 2990 m and 3390 meters. And all this is under ice cover, the greatest thickness of which reaches 4000 meters!
The Gamburtsev Mountains were formed 1 billion years ago. The discovery of this mountain range is extremely important for understanding the formation processes of the Earth's southern ice sheet. According to modern paleontological theories, the East Antarctic Shield, which now dominates territorially in Antarctica, was formed 33-35 million years ago. It not only hid the Gamburtsev Mountains under itself, but also gradually covered the entire continent with a multi-meter layer.
Mountains in the ocean
If the Gamburtsev Mountains were under a layer of ice, then the Lomonosov and Mendleyev Ridges, discovered by Soviet high-latitude expeditions in 1948 and 1949, respectively, were hidden from researchers by the waters of the Arctic Ocean.
The Lomonosov Ridge passes almost through the North Pole, its length is about 1800 km, its width varies from 60 to 200 km, its height above the ocean floor is from 3300 to 3700 meters, the minimum height of the water layer above the ridge begins at 900 meters. The Mendeleev Ridge has a slightly more complex history. It is divided by an underwater valley up to 2,700 meters deep, and the name “Mendeleev Ridge” refers only to the part that is closer to Russian territory.
Planting the Russian flag at the bottom of the Arctic Ocean
The discovery half a century ago unexpectedly attracted attention these days, when the Russian Federation submitted an application to the UN Commission, which argued the need to establish new boundaries of the Russian continental shelf due to the fact that the underwater Lomonosov and Mendeleev ridges are a continuation of the Eurasian continent.
The era of great geographical discoveries had a huge impact on the development of all mankind. The discovery of new lands, trade routes and more convenient sea routes made it possible to develop trade and public relations between countries and continents, develop many sciences, and expand people's understanding of the structure of the world.
Prerequisites for great geographical discoveries
Throughout history, many geographical discoveries have been made, but only those made at the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th centuries entered world history as Great ones. This is explained by the fact that neither before nor after this period no one managed to repeat the success of the medieval discoverers and make such large-scale discoveries.
At the turn of the 15th-16th centuries, brave sailors managed to open previously unknown lands to the entire Western world - South Africa and America, find new routes to Japan, China, Indonesia, sail across the Pacific Ocean, and conquer harsh polar waters.
Rice. 1. Sea travel.
Travelers of that time had not only the desire to make discoveries, but also all the means to achieve their goal:
- fast sailing ships;
- instruments that helped navigate long sea voyages;
- special navigation charts that made it easier to plot courses on the open sea or ocean.
The main reason for making new geographical discoveries was the increased need for new goods, raw materials, and more convenient and shorter trade routes.
Western merchants and industrialists saw the possibility of easy enrichment by robbing rich peoples from distant countries. India seemed to many to be such a magical country, the free and safe route to which ran only through the Atlantic Ocean.
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Rice. 2. Indian goods.
Products from India have been extremely popular in Europe since ancient times. However, there were no direct trade routes with this exotic country: there were hostile states on the way to India, and trade was carried out through numerous intermediaries. Indian spices, fabrics, gold, and jewelry attracted European travelers like a magnet.
Great geographical discoveries
The Portuguese were the first on the path to great geographical discoveries. They were quickly joined by the Spaniards and the British, who also made desperate attempts in search of new rich lands.
However, great geographical discoveries were made not only by European navigators. There were many brave pioneers in Russia who opened the vast expanses of Siberia and the Far East to the world.
Table “Great Geographical Discoveries”
|
opening date |
Traveler |
Perfect discoveries |
|
Bartolomeu Dias |
Opening of a sea route to the Indian Ocean along the coast of Africa |
|
|
Christopher Columbus |
Discovery of a new continent - America |
|
|
John Cabot |
The search for the northern route to India begins. Discovery of the Labrador Strait |
|
|
Vasco da Gama |
Opening of the sea route to India |
|
|
Pedro Carbal |
Discovery of Brazil |
|
|
Vasca Nunens Balboa |
Crossing the Isthmus of Panama and opening the Pacific Ocean |
|
|
Ferdinand Magellan |
The world's first trip around the world, during which it was proven that the Earth is spherical |
|
|
Abel Tasman |
Discovery of Australia and New Zealand |
|
|
Semyon Dezhnev and Fedot Popov |
Opening of the strait between Asia and North America |
Consequences of great geographical discoveries
New, previously unexplored lands, inhabited by completely unfamiliar peoples, seas and endless oceans amazed the imagination and opened up great opportunities that had previously been impossible to dream of.
Rice. 3. Discovery of America.
The most important consequences of great discoveries include:
- Development of relations and strengthening of ties between different states.
- Development of trade and industry.
- The beginning of the era of colonialism.
- Artificial interruption of Indian civilizations in the New World.
- A leap in the development of natural sciences.
- Establishment of modern continental contours.
What have we learned?
When studying the topic “Table “Great Geographical Discoveries”” according to the 7th grade history program, we learned what period the great geographical discoveries belong to and why they went down in history under that name. We found out which travelers made the most significant discoveries, and what role they played in the history of mankind.
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