Deep Sea Floor Mapping

What lies beneath the deep blue sea.

Deep sea floor mapping.

The first modern breakthrough in sea floor mapping came with the use of underwater sound projectors called sonar which was first used in world war i. Huge trenches walls flatlands and seamounts fill the seascape and have a direct impact on the water bodies above them. Seabed contains several hundred years worth of cobalt and nickel. The process that continually adds new material to the ocean floor is seafloor spreading and the continental slope.

Mapping the ocean floor. This graphic shows several ocean floor features on a scale from 0 35 000 feet below sea level. The following features are shown at example depths to scale though each feature has a considerable range at which it may occur. Lamont scientists have long been at the forefront of ocean floor mapping.

In recent years satellite images show a very clear mapping of the seabed and are used extensively in the study and exploration of the ocean floor. We re working to put our seafloor on the map through continuous data collection. Seafloor mapping also called seabed imaging is the measurement of water depth of a given body of water bathymetric measurements are conducted with various methods from sonar and lidar techniques to buoys and satellite altimetry various methods have advantages and disadvantages and the specific method used depends upon the scale of the area under study financial means desired measurement. Data collected by satellites and remote sensing instruments were used to created a model at least twice as.

By conducting a multibeam sonar survey similar to a medical ultrasound scientists are able to image the sea bottom. These systems provided the databases to construct the first real maps of important features such as the deep sea trenches and mid ocean ridges. Much of australia s vast ocean territory is unknown with less than 25 per cent of it mapped to a modern standard. Researchers today published the most detailed map of the ocean floor ever produced.

The ocean s floor is as complex as it is deep. The results that let this new marvelously detailed map of the seafloor from nasa s earth observatory be made were. So much more than you might think. In 1957 the publication of heezen and tharp s physiographic map of the north atlantic was the first map of the seafloor that allowed the general public to begin to visualize the ocean floor.