page_title: Valdivia Expedition
section_title: Conception and preparation
hierarchical_section_title: Valdivia Expedition / Conception and preparation
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Adalbert Krech (1852-1907), seemännischer Leiter der Valdivia-Expedition 1898/99 Depicted person&#58; &#32;Adalbert Krech
context_page_description: The Valdivia Expedition, or Deutschen Tiefsee-Expedition, was a scientific expedition organised and funded by the German Empire under Kaiser Wilhelm II and was named after the ship which was bought and outfitted for the expedition, the SS Valdivia. It was led by the marine biologist Carl Chun and the expedition ran from 1898-1899 with the purpose of exploring the depths of the oceans below 500 fathoms, which had not been explored by the earlier Challenger Expedition.
  The Challenger Expedition was the expedition that established modern Oceanography, prompting many other expeditions, nationally or privately funded, which would dredge the deep-sea in search of new and exotic species. This late 19th Century fascination with organisms found at great depths was unsurprising, because in the mid-19th century most scientists followed Abyssal Theory which stated that it was not possible for life to exist below 300 fathoms depth. Carl Chun, a famed teuthologist, held a deep conviction that there must be life, in abundance, which existed in the unknown abyssal regions of the oceans, a belief he shared with an increasingly large number of marine scientists.
context_section_description: Chun proposed to the Gesellschaft Deutscher Naturforscher und Ärzte (Society of German Naturalists and Doctors ), which was the German equivalent of the Royal Society, that a German deep sea expedition be funded and equipped to explore the deep oceans. His proposal was well received and a resolution to approve the plan and recommend it to the German government was unanimously adopted on 24 September 1897. It was originally conceived as purely zoological expedition but Friedrich Ratzel suggested that chemical and physical observations be included in the expedition's remit and this was accepted. The German government approved the proposal and granted the expedition 300,000 marks in initial funding with promises of further grants to cover the expenses of the expedition and the publication costs of its findings.
  The ship, the SS Valdivia, was chartered from the Hamburg-Amerikanischen Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft (HAPAG), which fitted the ship out with equipment such as dredging gear, specimen jars, deep sea traps and oceanographic equipment, also outfitting the laboratories, while also providing the crew and provisions, all for a sum equivalent to £17,000, a sum which covered the company's expenses but did not allow for any profit.
  Chun was the overall leader of the expedition. A captain of whaling ships, Adalbert Krech, was appointed the ship's captain while the navigator was Walter Sachse who was an employee of HAPAG's. The scientific staff was made up of the botanist Professor W. Schimper of Bonn, the zoologists Carl Apstein, Ernst Vanhöffen and Fritz Braem, the oceanographer Gerhardt Schott, the chemist Paul Schmidt and Dr M. Bathman who was a bacteriologist and the ship's doctor, who died on the voyage. August Brauer and Otto zur Strassen who were zoologists by profession and Fritz Winter who was an artist and photographer, but these had no official status recorded.
caption: Adalbert Krech 1898
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