Exploration in the context of "Speleology"

The history of exploration by citizens or subjects of the Russian Federation, the Soviet Union, the Russian Empire, the Tsardom of Russia and other Russian predecessor states forms a significant part of the history of Russia as well as the history of the world. At 17,075,400 square kilometres (6,592,850 sq mi), Russia is the largest country in the world, covering more than a ninth of Earth's landmass. In the times of the Soviet Union and the Russian Empire, the country's share in the world's landmass reached 1/6. Most of these territories were first discovered by Russian explorers (if indigenous peoples of inhabited territories are not counted). Contiguous exploration in Eurasia and the building of overseas colonies in Russian America were some of the primary factors in Russian territorial expansion.

Apart from their discoveries in Alaska, Central Asia, Siberia, and the northern areas surrounding the North Pole, Russian explorers have made significant contributions to the exploration of the Antarctic, Arctic, and the Pacific islands, as well as deep-sea and space explorations.

Abel Janszoon Tasman (Dutch: [ˈaːbəl ˈjɑnsoːn ˈtɑsmɑn]; 1603 – 10 October 1659) was a Dutch seafarer and explorer, best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). He was the first European to reach New Zealand, which he named Staten Landt. He was also the eponym of Tasmania.

Likely born in 1602 or 1603 in Lutjegast, Netherlands, Tasman started his career as a merchant seaman and became a skilled navigator. In 1633, he joined the VOC and sailed to Batavia, now Jakarta, Indonesia. He participated in several voyages, including one to Japan. In 1642, Tasman was appointed by the VOC to lead an expedition to explore the uncharted regions of the Southern Pacific Ocean. His mission was to discover new trade routes and to establish trade relations with the native inhabitants. After leaving Batavia, Tasman sailed westward to Mauritius, then south to the Roaring Forties, then eastward, and reached the coast of Tasmania, which he named Van Diemen's Land after his patron, Anthony van Diemen. He then sailed north east, and was the first European to discover the west coast of New Zealand, which he named Staten Landt. It was later renamed Nieuw Zeeland, after the Dutch province of Zeeland, by Joan Blaeu, official Dutch cartographer to the Dutch East India Company.

A rover (or sometimes planetary rover) is a planetary surface exploration machine designed to move over the rough surface of a planet or other planetary-mass celestial bodies. Some rovers have been designed as land vehicles to transport members of a human spaceflight crew; others have been partially or fully autonomous robots.

Rovers typically landed on an exoplanet (planets other than Earth) or a moon via a lander-style spacecraft, tasked to move around and collect information about the terrain, and to take crust samples such as dust, soil, rocks and even liquids. They are essential astrogeology tools for space exploration.

In military operations, military reconnaissance (/rɪˈkɒnɪsəns/) or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, the terrain, and civil activities in the area of operations. In military jargon, reconnaissance is abbreviated to recce (in British, Canadian, Australian English) and to recon (in American English), both derived from the root word reconnoitre / reconnoitering.

The types of reconnaissance include patrolling the local area of operations and long-range reconnaissance patrols, which are tasks usually realized in the United States of America by U.S. Army Rangers, cavalry scouts, and military intelligence specialists, using navy ships and submarines, reconnaissance aircraft, satellites to collect raw intelligence; and establishing observation posts. Moreover, espionage is different from reconnaissance, because spies work as civilians in enemy territory.

Explorers are listed below with their common names, countries of origin (modern and former), centuries of activity and main areas of exploration.

Deep-sea exploration is the investigation of physical, chemical, and biological conditions on the ocean waters and sea bed beyond the continental shelf, for scientific or commercial purposes. Deep-sea exploration is an aspect of underwater exploration and is considered a relatively recent human activity compared to the other areas of geophysical research, as the deeper depths of the sea have been investigated only during comparatively recent years. The ocean depths still remain a largely unexplored part of the Earth, and form a relatively undiscovered domain.

Scientific deep-sea exploration can be said to have begun when French scientist Pierre-Simon Laplace investigated the average depth of the Atlantic Ocean by observing tidal motions registered on Brazilian and African coasts circa the late 18th or early 19th century. However, the exact date of his investigation is unknown. He calculated the depth to be 3,962 metres (12,999 ft), a value later proven quite accurate by echo-sounding measurement techniques. Later on, due to increasing demand for the installment of submarine cables, accurate measurements of the sea floor depth were required and the first investigations of the sea bottom were undertaken. The first deep-sea life forms were discovered in 1864 when Norwegian researchers Michael Sars and Georg Ossian Sars obtained a sample of a stalked crinoid at a depth of 3,109 m (10,200 ft).

Sir Francis Drake (c. 1540 – 28 January 1596) was an English explorer and privateer best known for making the second circumnavigation of the world in a single expedition between 1577 and 1580 (being the first English expedition to accomplish this). He is also known for participating in the early English slaving voyages of his cousin, John Hawkins, and John Lovell. Having started as a simple seaman, in 1588 he was part of the fight against the Spanish Armada as a vice admiral.

At an early age, Drake was placed into the household of a relative, William Hawkins, a prominent sea captain in Plymouth. In 1572, he set sail on his first independent mission, privateering along the Spanish Main. Drake's circumnavigation began on 15 December 1577. He crossed the Pacific Ocean, until then an area of exclusive Spanish interest, and laid claim to New Albion, plundering coastal towns and ships for treasure and supplies as he went. He arrived back in England on 26 September 1580. Elizabeth I awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581 which he received aboard his galleon the Golden Hind.