100 seamen and scientists, visiting many of the same places the original Galathea had visited over a century earlier. The main difference in the route taken from the earlier expedition was in using the Panama Canal, rather than the Drake Passage at the southern end of South America, to transit between the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic. From 1950 to 1952 the expedition carried out a program of scientific exploration; the highlight occurred in July 1951 when, while investigating the Philippine Trench, scientists secured biological material from a record depth of . The expedition returned to Copenhagen in June 1952 where the ship was welcomed by a crowd of 20,000 people. Results The second Galathea expedition led to the discovery of, among other things, the fish species Antipodocottus galatheae and Abyssobrotula galatheae, the snail species Guttula galatheae and, above all, living Monoplacophora, a class of "ancestral mollusc" which until then was known only from the fossil record. The biggest sensation at the time, however, was the discovery of barnacles on a rock from the bottom of the Philippine Trench since it had been assumed that life could not exist at this sea depth. Dr Claude E. ZoBell, the 'Father of Marine Microbiology', was aboard this expedition. Third expedition The third expedition took place during 2006–2007, using the offshore patrol frigate HDMS Vædderen, which was refitted to serve as an expedition ship. It is a Thetis class frigate which was built at the Svendborg Shipyards in 1990 and is m long and m wide. Although the voyage was publicised as the third Galathea expedition, the ship itself was not renamed. The expedition's main purpose was to carry out research on climate and weather changes, earthquakes, tsunamis, and marine biology. It left Copenhagen in August 2006 and visited the Faroe Islands and Greenland, then travelled southwards through the Atlantic Ocean along the west coast of Africa to Cape Town. It then crossed the Indian Ocean to Australia, the Solomon Islands, New Zealand, and Antarctica, before sailing northwards along the west coast of South America to the Panama Canal, then sailing through the Caribbean and visiting New York, before returning to Denmark in April 2007. References Notes Sources Further reading External links Scientific Results of The Danish Deep-Sea Expedition GALATHEA 2 Global expeditions Oceanographic expeditions Science and technology in Denmark Royal Danish Navy Exploration ships Research vessels Expeditions from Denmark