Mapped Ocean Floor

778 points 3 months ago.

Mapped ocean floor.

We ve come a long way in ocean exploration since the days of the hms challenger launched in 1858. 100 years of marie tharp the woman who mapped the ocean floor and laid the foundations of modern geology. This graphic shows several ocean floor features on a scale from 0 35 000 feet below sea level. Yes we do because actually 100 of the ocean floor is mapped.

Continental shelf 300 feet continental slope 300 10 000 feet abyssal plain 10 000 feet abyssal hill 3 000 feet up from the abyssal plain seamount 6 000 feet. Since the ocean occupies roughly 70 of the earth s surface this leaves approximately 65 of the earth excluding dry land unexplored. How one brilliant woman mapped the secrets of the ocean floor this animation by rosanna wan for the royal institution tells the fascinating story of marie tharp s groundbreaking work to help. The following features are shown at example depths to scale though each feature has a considerable range at which it may occur.

This work is now being done at a higher resolution so they can imply in a headline that we know less about the ocean than we actually do. One fifth of earth s ocean floor is now mapped. Derya gürer july 30 2020 influential women of ts no comments. To complete a map of earth s ocean floor you ve got to take to the high seas by boat.

Most of the seafloor that has been mapped thoroughly is close to shore. Before that day the 70 percent of the earth s surface covered by water had been filled in by a cold blank blue essentially ignored. By jonathan amos bbc science. And of course actually to see the sea floor using cameras or our own eyes means getting even closer using remotely operated vehicles or manned submersibles.

The woman who mapped the ocean floor. The initiative that seeks to galvanise the creation of a full map of the ocean floor says one fifth of this task. That is quite a lot of earth left to explore. So far less than 0 05 percent of the ocean floor has been mapped to that highest level of detail by sonar which is an area roughly equivalent in size to tasmania.

The problem with that approach is that our oceans are vast and ships are small meaning only a tiny percentage of the ocean floor between 5 15 percent nasa estimates was mapped. Only about 5 of the world s seafloor has been mapped in some detail.