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NEWPORT - A tale of bravery and scientific discovery in the face of incredible natural hardships will be related in a lecture at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 18, at Oregon State University's Hatfield Marine Science Center.

Oxford researcher Richard Corfield will provide a time machine that will take audiences back to 1872 for the historic scientific voyage of HMS Challenger. The lecture will take place in the Hennings Auditorium in the HMSC's Visitors Center. Corfield's talk is free and open to the public.

In 1872 the crew of Challenger set sail from Portsmouth, England, to map and sample the ocean floor, hoping to provide proof of Charles Darwin's radical theory of relativity. Their voyage, according to Corfield, was nothing less than a mission to garner support for either God or science.

Over the next three and a half years the crew of researchers, scientists and sailors braved tropical heat waves and the stupefying cold of the Antarctic on a voyage that eventually covered 69,000 nautical miles.

Corfield has written about the voyage in his book, in, "The Silent Landscape: The Scientific Voyage of HMS Challenger," recently published by John Henry Press.

"By retracing Challenger's triumphant voyage, I'm giving readers a new look at the fascinating underwater landscape," Corfield said. "I revisit key stops on Challenger's itinerary, and give readers the added bonus of learning what 21st century science is now able to add to this incredible story."

Corfield is an earth scientist and science writer based at Oxford University. He is a regular feature writer for popular magazines in the natural sciences. "The Silent Landscape" is his second book.