New world ocean floor map
Using previously untapped data from European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA satellites, scientists have created a new map of the world’s seafloor to provide a detailed illustration of the structures that make up the deepest and least-explored parts of oceans. It is claimed to be twice as accurate as an earlier version produced nearly 20 years ago.
Thousands of previously uncharted mountains rising from seafloors, called seamounts, appear on the map along with new clues about formation of continents. Combined with existing data and improved remote sensing instruments, the new map provides the means for investigating ocean-spreading centres and little-studied remote ocean basins.
The map also provides a foundation for the upcoming new version of Google’s ocean maps and will fill large voids between shipboard depth profiles. Previously unseen features include newly-exposed continental connections across South America and Africa and new evidence for seafloor-spreading ridges in the Gulf of Mexico now buried by mile-thick layers of sediment. One of the map’s most important uses will be to improve estimates of seafloor depth in the 80% of oceans that remain uncharted, say co-authors Dietmar Muller of the Univesity of Sydney, Richard Francis of ESA and Emmanuel Garcia of Scripps Institution of Oceanography. It can be viewed at https://scripps.ucsd.edu/news/new-map.
By David Goodfellow
