The deep-sea expeditions that have taken place through the history of ocean sciences have been grouped into four eras:

• Era of Exploration (1873-1914)
• Era of National Systematic and Dynamic Ocean Surveys (1925-1940)
• Era of New Marine Geological, Geophysical, Biological and Physical Methods (1947-1956)
• Era of of International Research Cooperation (1957-Present)

The Era of Exploration is considered to have begun - along with modern oceanography - with the British Challenger expedition from 1873-1876. The era was characterized by widely-spaced stations alongs isolated profiles, and the combined results of several such expeditions provided a first overall picture of the bathymetry, stratification and circulation of the water masses and conditions for life in the deep oceans. Other significant expeditions in the era included the German Gazelle (1874-1876), National (1889), Valdivia (1898-1899), Gauss (1901-1903) and Deutschland (1911-1912) expeditions; the U.S. Blake (1877-1886) and Albatross (1887-1888) expeditions; the Russian Vitiaz (1886-1889) expedition; the Hirondelle and Pricesse Alice expeditions of Monaco (1888-1922); the Norwegian Fram (1893-1896), Michael Sars (1904-1913) and Armauer Hansen (1913-Onward) expeditions. These were single, long-term expeditions on large vessels until the Scandinavian school pioneered the use of smaller vessels for more systematic research, e.g. with the Armauer Hansen.

The Era of National Systematic and Dynamic Ocean Surveys was initiated in 1925-1927 by the German Atlantic Expedition on the RV Meteor. This expedition took closely spaced measurements at standard intervals all the way to the sea floor along fourteen latitudinal cross-sections of the Atlantic Ocean between 20 N and 65 S. This stimulated other nations to undertake similar expeditions, e.g. the Dutch Willebrord Snellius Expedition (1929-1930) in the East Indian seas, the British Discover Expeditions (since 1930) mostly in the Antarctic oceans, the American Atlantis Expeditions (since 1931) mostly in the North Atlantic, the Danish Dana II (1928-1930) around the world expedition, the Carnegie (1928) and Ryofu Maru and E. W. Scripps (since 1937) Pacific Ocean expeditions, the quasi-synoptic survey of the Gulf Stream northwest of the Azores by the Altair and Armauer Hansen in 1937, and the Russian icebreaker Sedov initiating research in the North Polar Sea in 1938.