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Almost 25% of world’s seafloor now mapped
- sklargh 4y agoThis is an impressive accomplishment. Not that we'll get to find out in a timely manner but I am curious how these maps compare to bathymetric surveys in the classified submarine world.
- xen2xen1 4y agoYes, I hear "undersea mapping" and I go to "a high speed run" in my head from "The Hunt for Red October". Funny how commercial or even free catches up with military applications.
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- vavooom 4y ago"Ocean floor topography also helps identify underwater hazards and inform sustainable marine resource management and infrastructure development." Likely to inform and fuel the Rare Earth mining already being done on the ocean floor. Take for example off the West Coast of North America: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rare-earth-elements-u-s-on-sidelines-in-race-for-metals-sitting-on-ocean-floor-60-minutes-60-minutes-2019-11-17/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rare-earth-elements-u-s-on-side...
- psychphysic 4y agoOne of my favourite stories is how deep sea mining was started because the CIA went overboard (pun intended) with a cover story [0]. [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/deep_sea_mining https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/deep_sea_mining
- JWLong 4y agoSee also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_response https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glomar_response
- walrus01 4y agosee also: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=the+jennifer+morgue https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=the+jenni...
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- fsckboy 4y agoI'm just the right age to have learned about the enormous potential of deep sea mining by being taught about it in grade school! we were gonna vacuum up manganese nodules!
- mnw21cam 4y agoI was the right age to learn about the enormous potential of deep sea mining by reading Willard Price. Actually, looking at when Underwater Adventure was written, I could have been born any year and still learn about it by that method.
- fsckboy 4y agoI'm talking about when it was breathlessly added to the school curriculum at the time the Glomar ship was being built. So I was saying something like "I read about leaked story of Moses parting the Red Sea in the newspaper!"; yes, you're right, anybody can learn about Moses from the Bible.
- walrus01 4y ago> Ocean floor topography also helps identify underwater hazards You think the ocean is mostly empty, until your nuclear powered attack submarine runs into a previously uncharted (or incorrectly charted) submarine mountain https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/04/asia/submarine-uss-connecticut-accident-undersea-mountain-hnk-intl-ml-dst/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/04/asia/submarine-uss-connecticu... https://www.npr.org/2021/11/02/1051422572/navy-submarine-nuclear-collision-south-china-sea https://www.npr.org/2021/11/02/1051422572/navy-submarine-nuc... It's happened more than once... On 8 January 2005 at 02:43 GMT, San Francisco collided with an undersea mountain about 364 nautical miles (675 km) southeast of Guam while operating at flank (maximum) speed at a depth of 525 feet (160 m). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_San_Francisco_(SSN-711) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_San_Francisco_(SSN-711)
- TedDoesntTalk 4y agoI don't get it. Was their sonar broken?
- kmill 4y ago> Submarines do have their own sonar, but using it comes at a price – loss of stealthiness.
- encryptluks2 4y agoIs there not reliable alternatives to sonar that would maintain stealth?
- mlindner 4y agoThey're in a place where there is no lights and no sound. You have to emit something whether that be in the form of sound or in the electromagnetic spectrum in order to receive a reflection back and emissions remove stealth. Not to mention that sonar is highly disruptive to many forms of sea life as it's incredibly loud.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y agoEvery time I read about seafloor mapping, my mind immediately jumps to MH 370. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaysia_Airlines_Flight_370 A large airliner carrying more than 200 people disappeared, and over the past 8 years, we still have not found the main body of the airplane or the black boxes.
- rexreed 4y agoThat's also the first thing I think about. The disappearance of MH370 and the inability to find it combined with sea floor mapping always makes me wonder. I've always fantasized about the idea of autonomous seafloor mapping drones.
- jmyeet 4y agoIt's really a testament to just how large the ocean is. Remember there's more than twice as much sea than land and we lose things on land too. Things on land might not be under 3 miles of water that takes expensive, specialized equipment in remote locations to actually reach. I do hope for a resolution for MH370 one day but we know the bullet points: it was a deliberate action by the pilot (and/or the co-pilot) to depressurize the plane, run it out into the ocean and (most likely) make a "soft" landing after which it would fill with water and sink. There's alot of evidence for this and no other proposed scenario fits the evidence.
- EMM_386 4y ago> I do hope for a resolution for MH370 one day but we know the bullet points: it was a deliberate action by the pilot (and/or the co-pilot) to depressurize the plane, run it out into the ocean and (most likely) make a "soft" landing after which it would fill with water and sink. There's alot of evidence for this and no other proposed scenario fits the evidence. I'm a certified commercial pilot and I'm researched this incident extensively. That's the most plausible conclusion that I can come to. The precise turning to attempt to evade radar at the start (even the military radars) must have meant extremely precise planning at the start. There are a lot of other cockpit maneuveurs and flip switching you'd have to go to during this phase but I won't get into that. You can depressurize it at altitude to kill the passengers and then put it into the furthest reaches of the ocean. It's a very sad situation all around but I can't find any facts that would point to other alternatives.
- Ptchd 4y agoHow much of it is covered with Corexit 9500 and 9527? (courtesy of BP)
- olivermarks 4y agoAmazing to realize that 75% of the oceans - which are 70% of the earth's surface - are unmapped and unknown
- iso1631 4y agoHow does that compare to the surface of the moon, or mars
- mkr-hn 4y agoThe resolution could be better, but it's still better than what we have of the ocean floor. https://www.google.com/moon/ https://www.google.com/moon/
- fckgw 4y agoWe know way more about the moon than we do the ocean. Most if not all of the moon not on the dark side is fully mapped.
- mkr-hn 4y agoThere is no permanently dark side of the moon. It's all lit eventually.
- ortusdux 4y agoThe far side of the Moon is the lunar hemisphere that always faces away from Earth, opposite to the near side, because of synchronous rotation in the moon's orbit. ... The hemisphere is sometimes called the "dark side of the Moon", where "dark" means "unknown" instead of "lacking sunlight" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_side_of_the_Moon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far_side_of_the_Moon
- messe 4y agoWhile you're not wrong, the grandparent comment said that most of the "dark side" is not fully mapped, implying—at least to in reading of it—that the reason it's not mapped is due to it being the "dark side". In reality though, our maps of the far side of the moon are as good as those on the near side.
- Someone 4y agoProject site: https://seabed2030.org https://seabed2030.org. From the FAQ, they aim for something better than Depth range Grid cell size % of world ocean floor 0– 1500 m 100 × 100 m 13.7 1500– 3000 m 200 × 200 m 11 3000– 5750 m 400 × 400 m 72.6 5750–11000 m 800 × 800 m 2.7 For comparison, https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/8333/a-decade-of-compiling-the-sharpest-mars-map/ https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/8333/a-decade-of-compiling-t...: “each observation by CTX covers a swath of ground about 18.6 miles (30 kilometers) wide, at a resolution of about 20 feet (6 meters) per pixel” Not having oceans makes this a lot easier.
- rngname22 4y agoWill be interesting this century to see if increased sensor coverage in the ocean leads to more detection of USOs (unidentified submerged objects). Would love it if a curious billionaire would fund detection systems as anecdotally it seems USO and UFO (same thing?) activity is centered around oceans and coasts, especially off Santa Catalina Island as well as Virginia Beach.
- b33j0r 4y ago*UAP. There is something going on, but it’s very unclear what it is. Hard to tell right now if the “threat” knows it’s targeting military (might even be us), or if the military has the only sensors/opportunities to have these encounters. That said, let’s speed this up. The Kraken is always in the last 5%, and C’thulhu is always the very last place you look.
- Darkphibre 4y ago> C'thulhu is always the very last place you look. Inverse survivorship bias: That's because you are no longer able to look elsewhere...
- hinkley 4y agoWould an ROV even register C'thulhu if it saw it?
- arthurcolle 4y agoFalcon 2: 2-9 we're getting an awfully weird visual on the hyperspectral module feed, some kind of a strange formation off the coast of Florida, looks like some kind of winged tentacle monster waving his hands causing a landmass to rise out of the sea. Anyone else hearing something that sounds like "R'lyeh" on comms? Falcon 1: confirming Falcon 2's visual, seeing the same thing... and my dead son from a decade ago... transmission dies Falcon 2: Can't see nothing on the AV, wtf?
- asdff 4y ago
- CSMastermind 4y agoI remember when Google added seafloors to maps they made a plea to fund more complete mapping. I can't find it now but if someone else knows where it is then it would be interesting to look back at 10 years ago and see how far we've come.
- loceng 4y agoI was hoping this was somehow mapped in real-time to follow movements of ocean life. Is there any efforts to doing so, if it's even a reasonable endeavour? I personally think it'd be a worthwhile thing to do - but maybe will take such a massive amount of resources that we'll have to solve more pressing issues and stabilize society first before we'll - with precision - manage the ocean as a food source?
- roywiggins 4y agoIf it's possible to peek under the ocean in realtime to any significant degree, I reckon it would be the single most sensitive government secret: it would enable tracking nuclear submarines.
- convolvatron 4y ago30+ years ago I visited a skif at NRL, and someone responsible for doing the mapping said that they basically tracked all the whales, even back then.
- loceng 4y agoWhales are loud with their communication, so I could see that easily being possible - especially as pods and even specific whales apparently have unique voices.
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- stjohnswarts 4y agoI honestly assumed it was more than this.
- Trouble_007 4y agoRemembering that the Ocean floor topography is not fixed. 'new island formed' A new island is forming in the Pacific Ocean after an underwater volcanic eruption : https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-island-pacific-ocean-volcano-eruption-tonga-new-zealand/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-island-pacific-ocean-volcan... List of new Islands : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_new_islands https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_new_islands
- hinkley 4y agoLast I heard we're due a new Hawaiian island in about 5 thousand years. Loihi is still almost a kilometer down and slowly climbing. Edit: seems like the first reservations are in 50,000 years, not 5000
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- redleggedfrog 4y agoYes, but can we buy it yet?
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- SamPatt 4y agoWho pays for these mapping efforts, and why?
- walrus01 4y agoI'm less certain on the payment part, but having a very accurate bathymetric survey of the entire path is important for inter-continental submarine fiber optic cable laying. The cable ship needs to know precisely what speed to maintain at every point in the path and how rapidly to pay out the cable for it to not lay taut across underwater valleys, and to conform to the shape of the bottom.
- NiceWayToDoIT 4y agoAre they going to release maps or it is just for eyes of selected few?
- Victerius 4y agoThe data probably sits on a few hundred hard drives in a data center. To make it available to the public, they would need to move the data to a client-facing server, then set up a platform to allow the public to navigate through the data. It's not an easy undertaking.
- caf 4y agoSeems to be public domain, available here: https://www.gebco.net/data_and_products/gridded_bathymetry_data/ https://www.gebco.net/data_and_products/gridded_bathymetry_d...
- NiceWayToDoIT 4y agoHeaven oh mighty, I just wanted something web based to take a peak not to download 5Gb of data :D. Few resolution layers, real time like google map, there are public domain algorithms now, should not be difficult to setup and they could put something like wiki. (support me button) Anyhow thanks!
- caf 4y agoBeing public domain I guess they're leaving that up to interested parties to implement. Perhaps you'd like to have a crack!
- Tossrock 4y agoIf you find this interesting, there's a very long, very good episode of the Omega Tau podcast about how seafloor mapping is done in practice. The host goes aboard the HMS Enterprise - a Royal Navy survey ship - and interviews a bunch of different officers and crewmen about the process. https://omegataupodcast.net/277-life-and-work-on-hms-enterprise/ https://omegataupodcast.net/277-life-and-work-on-hms-enterpr...
- andirk 4y agoDoes that mean we'll find those missing airliners that disappeared in past few years?
- colingw 4y agoI hope they find the ruins of Numenor soon.
- njharman 4y agoTIL less than 25% of seafloor is mapped!!! I figured it would be much, much higher. I wonder if militaries have more mapped but consider it secret. That is also mostly shallower areas (for submarine evasion and detection).
- MichaelCollins 4y ago> I wonder if militaries have more mapped but consider it secret. Almost certainly, although I expect they focus a lot more on some areas than others. And they probably care about the deepest parts of the ocean floor less than the rest; if the ocean is so deep that it crushes anything short of a bathysphere, then it's probably less important to have precise maps of the ocean floor in those areas.
- batushka3 4y agoThey do, but not street view equvalent if they crash a submarine https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2022/07/u-s-navy-comments-on-uss-connecticut-submarine/ https://www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2022/07/u-s-navy-commen...
- DubiousPusher 4y agoBut how profitable can it be. Tell us HN.
- Danieru 4y agoSure: highly profitable for the sponsor's management. The Nippon Foundation is the charitable arm of Japan's boat racing gambling monopoly. One of only five types of legal gambling they have a large and profitable monopoly in exchange for charitable work like this. The management and advertisers in turn make the profit. They just built a giant and super expensive HQ skyscraper in the Roppongi area. They also sponsor various suicide help lines and subsidize wheel chair enabled vans.
- bowwoden 4y agoDid they find the crabs yet?
- awestroke 4y agoAnd all of it has been destroyed bottom trawling
- maptime 4y agoI think readers would be surprised to find out how poorly some regions of the Caribbean or Africa are charted. It's common for source data to be from the 1950s, for some ports I have seen tidal harmonics that were first recorded on rolls of paper. Charts of the arctic still relying on data from Cook(at least it doesn't change much thanks to it being rocky...) I doubt many will shed a tear for the super yacht owners of the world but with their desire to go to ever more exotic locations they have highlighted how poor our data is for some parts of the world.
- Ekaros 4y agoThe reason is that most of it is deep enough that mapping it for most commercial and recreational use does not matter. Thus the focus is mostly in shallow areas where there are risks or accessing it is possible.
- iancmceachern 4y agoI'm torn, is this a good thing or a bad thing? On one hand, discovery is the human way. On the other hand just like the USGS before, this is the first step to mining and other exploitation. Don't get me wrong, I went to the Colorado School of Mines so I know intimately how critical mining is to our modern civilization. I guess what I'm hoping to highlight is the various world views. Some folks when they see this headline will say "great, now we can further explore, understand, and protect it" and some folks will say "great, now how do we mine or otherwise extract thr value just sitting on the sea floor for my and my friends profit". I'm not trying to pass judgement on either, just highlight the duality of our modern life. We seek to protect and preserve on one hand and on the other hand we don't. Somehow we need to get our hands both working on the same thing.
- linkdink 4y agoMaybe it will lead to treating the oceans as more of an actively managed resource. So that's one possibly positive thing that could partially offset the inevitable negatives. Personally, I'm also really interested in learning more about human prehistory because much of it was coastal and now submerged.
- asdff 4y agoUS Military wants these maps. Submarines have crashed into mountains a few times in the past.