Map: Joshua Stevens / NASA Earth Observatory
While water covers a vast majority of our planet’s surface, it’s still somewhat surprising to be reminded that mankind has only mapped about five percent of the ocean’s surface. What we have seen and mapped in the past has been reliant on the use of sonar from ships already out to sea. But as previously mentioned, that’s only led us to uncovering a tiny fraction of what lies below the surface.
Now scientists at NASA have employed a new method for mapping the ocean’s floor that just gave us the most complete map to date. Taking existing satellite data of the ocean, researchers used sea surface heights and gravity to find the most intricate details of the ocean’s mountains, valleys and crevices. The red and orange areas on the map detail places they found gravity to be stronger, with the blue patches signifying the places where gravity was weaker. The red and orange areas are mountains rising closer to the ocean’s surface, making blue the deepest crevices and faults. The map details any feature in the Earth’s crust larger than five kilometers, capturing some of the smaller features missing in previous maps of the ocean. Altogether it’s given us a look at just a few of the unexplored areas on our planet.
