A half-century ago, two U.S. Navy explorers ventured to the deepest place on Earth, the Mariana Trench, nearly 7 miles below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. Nobody has returned to the abyss since, and most of the oceans remain largely unexplored.
So today, World Oceans Day, LiveScience's parent company, TechMediaNetwork Inc. launches its newest site, OurAmazingPlanet, which celebrates Earth's oceans — as well as the land, air and life — and offers daily news, features and amazing images of expeditions and discoveries from the top of the world to the bottom of the sea.
"We know more about the surface of Mars than we do about some areas of our own seafloor," said Robert Roy Britt, editor in chief of the TechMediaNetwork. "But scientists are revealing exciting new findings every day. OurAmazingPlanet explores what's known, examines the mysteries that remain, and takes readers on a daily journey to the far corners of the planet."
At launch, the Web site includes the following stories about the world's oceans:
- The 10 largest oceans and seas: You know the Pacific and the Atlantic are big, but what bodies of water round out the list?
- An account of the incredible 1960 journey to the bottom of the sea by U.S. Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard aboard the bathyscaphe Trieste.
- An astonishing 95 percent of the world's oceans remain unmapped and largely unknown, but scientists are beginning to probe the mysteries of the deep and are turning up some unexpected treasures.
OurAmazingPlanet joins sister TechMediaNetwork sites SPACE.com, LiveScience and Life's Little Mysteries in making science and exploration accessible to lay readers. The network also includes TechNewsDaily, iPadNewsDaily, TopTenREVIEWS and Newsarama.
"Science and technology research fuel progress and yield exciting discoveries, and our rapidly growing online audience reflects the large appetite for news and features about innovation, discovery and exploration," said TechMediaNetwork CEO Jerry Ropelato. "I'm fascinated by science and exploration, and just as SPACE.com is the No. 1 source for space science and exploration news, OurAmazingPlanet will be the go-to source for all science and discoveries right here at home."
TechMediaNetwork recently rose to No. 4 on the list of tech-news Web properties and grew by 2,367 percent, according to comScore's Panel-only Key Measures Report from April 2009 to April 2010, according to a company statement. TechMediaNetwork had 13 million unique visitors in May among its sites.
