Arts & Lectures
2001-2002 Season Lecture Series News Release
For Immediate Release

October 30, 2001
Contact: George Yatchisin
(805) 893-3494
e-mail: yatchisin-g@sa.ucsb.edu

Noted scientist Dr. Robert D. Ballard
to deliver lecture, “Deep Sea Exploration:
Titanic, Lusitania and Bismarck” at UCSB

Summary Facts:

One of the major explorers of our day, Dr. Robert D. Ballard, scientist emeritus from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and founder and president of the Institute for Exploration, will present the illustrated lecture “Deep Sea Exploration: Titanic, Lusitania and Bismarck” on Wednesday, December 5 at 8 pm at UCSB Campbell Hall.

Ballard insists, “There is more history preserved in the deep sea than in all the museums of the world combined.” He has supported that claim by discovering and exploring the remains of the most famous maritime and military calamities of the century, from the R.M.S. Titanic to the U.S.S. Yorktown. He has also popularized undersea exploration through varied media, having hosted the weekly National Geographic Explorer television series from 1989 to 1991, having published numerous books including the recent Adventures in Ocean Exploration: From the Discovery of the Titanic to the Search for Noah’s Flood (National Geographic Society 2001) and having founded the JASON Project, which provides grade schools with a comprehensive, multimedia approach to enhance teaching and learning in science and technology.

Dr. Ballard received his B.S. in Geology and Chemistry from UCSB and his Ph.D. in Marine Geology and Geophysics from the University of Rhode Island. While at UCSB he served with the campus’s ROTC Battalion. For the first 15 years of his career he used deep diving submersibles to explore under the sea, especially the Mid-Ocean Ridge, the largest geological feature on the planet. Ballard then developed advanced robots to improve the ability to explore the ocean floor. These robots helped him make his most famous discoveries, including the Titanic. More recently he has concentrated on the nascent field of deep water marine archaeology in his post as president and founder of the Institute for Exploration. Part of this project involves tracing human history to the anaerobic depths of the Earth’s seas.

The driving force for Dr. Ballard’s work is the end goal of education. “Better understanding of the oceans and the land surface beneath it is critical to our understanding of the planet as a whole. For I think of Earth as a live, breathing organism on whose back we live. Yet the collective actions of the human race now threaten Earth’s very existence,” Ballard said in a talk to the Philosophical Society of Texas in 1998. “We must wake up to the fact that Earth is a small planet in the heavens and the space upon which we can live is smaller still. So I ask all of you to think about this issue and what steps you can take to save us from ourselves. First and foremost is the education of the next generation since the actions they take may be the most important actions to be taken in the history of the human race.”

This lecture is co-presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures, the Department of Military Science, the Division of Social Sciences, the Division of Science, the UCSB Marine Science Institute, the Department of Geological Sciences and the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum.

Ticket prices are $15 for the general public and $10 for UCSB students. Tickets are on sale now and may be purchased the night of the lecture, if available, beginning at 7 pm.

For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.

Editor: For photos, please call
George Yatchisin at (805) 893-3494.

©2001 UCSB Arts & Lectures, University of California, Santa Barbara