ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

The Discovery and Study of Submarine Canyons: Francis Shepard and the La Jolla Fan System in the Context of Contested Theories and Shifting Methods

• In Event: Earth and Environment: Cosmic, Plural, and Contested Perspectives

English Abstract

Submarine canyons are deep, V-shaped valleys on the seafloor, typically beginning near the edge of the continental shelf and extending down the slope toward the deep ocean. First recognized in the nineteenth century, their origins became a controversy in the discipline of geology in the twentieth, with competing theories attributing them to submerged river valleys, glacial erosion, turbidity currents, or tectonic activity.
The La Jolla Fan System off southern California emerged as a central site for this debate when Francis Shepard and colleagues at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) began systematic studies in the 1930s. Located adjacent to La Jolla and Scripps Canyons, the institution had unknowingly been established in 1907 beside a major submarine feature only later revealed. Research methods evolved dramatically over subsequent decades—from lead-line soundings and shipboard sampling to hard-hat diving, scuba, and submersibles—each expanding the capacity to sense and interpret the seafloor.
Drawing on archival materials from UC San Diego’s Scripps archives, this paper explores how submarine canyon research demonstrates plural modes of knowledge production in marine geology. These included direct field observations, instrumentally derived data, and theoretical models. Disputes among figures like Reginald A. Daly, Philip H. Kuenen, and Shepard highlight shifting perspectives in geology. While the La Jolla Fan System illuminated key mechanisms, comparisons with other major canyons—including Hudson, Monterey, Congo, and Bengal—placed it within a planetary framework, revealing both commonalities and distinctive features in the global study of submarine canyons.

Author

• Katrin Kleemann, German Maritime Museum - Leibniz Institut for Maritime History, Bremerhaven