Nearly 20 percent of Earth’s seafloor is now mapped

Swedish icebreaker Oden mapping in previously uncharted areas of Northern Greenland during the 2019 Ryder Expedition. The data were contributed to the Seabed 2030 Project. | Martin Jakobsson, co-head of the Seabed 2030 Arctic and North Pacific Ocean Regional Center

In a decisive leap, researchers have now mapped roughly one fifth of the world’s ocean floor. When an initiative to map the entire seafloor by 2030 took off in 2017, just 6 percent had been mapped to modern standards.
The project, called Seabed 2030, is a collaboration between the Japan-based Nippon foundation and the intergovernmental organization the General Bathymetric Chart of the Ocean (GEBCO). The endeavor will help scientists better understand how tsunamis form and how much we can expect sea levels to rise as a result of climate change. The complete map could also aid industries looking to exploit oil, gas, and minerals in the deep sea. And the data is important for telecom companies laying down undersea cables from coast to…

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