New Seafloor Map Only 25% Done, with 6 Years to Go
Ten years have passed since Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 vanished after departing from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, with 239 people aboard. Military and scientific personnel spent months combing unexplored reaches of the Indian Ocean, and though they failed to find the Boeing 777, the quest highlighted the fact that beneath the waves, vast areas of Earth’s ocean are still a mystery.
Seabed 2030 is a long-term mapping project attempting to fully chart the seafloor and reveal all features 100 meters or larger by 2030. But with just a quarter of the job now done, it still faces tremendous challenges.
“Maps enable us to manage how we utilize marine space, [guide] ocean commerce and use of resources, mitigate our impacts, and achieve an improved understanding of threats such as tsunami, storm surges, and underwater landslides.”
The General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO) and Nippon Foundation, a Japanese nonprofit that funnels profits from motorboat racing to philanthropic causes, established Seabed 2030 in 2017. The aim was to use ocean mapping to support United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 14, namely, to “conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.” At the time, only 6% of the ocean floor had been mapped to modern standards, according to the project.
