When you glance at Google Maps, it might feel like every inch of our planet has been thoroughly surveyed. Yet, beneath the vast ocean surface, an entirely different story unfolds – a world still largely veiled from our view, even with advanced satellite technology.
This hidden reality is due to a fundamental limitation: radar signals cannot penetrate water. While commercial satellites offer incredibly detailed surface images, down to roughly 30 centimeters per pixel, our understanding of the ocean floor is far coarser, with typical resolutions only reaching 5 to 8 kilometers per pixel.
Currently, only about 20% of the ocean’s vast bed has been precisely surveyed using echo-sounding technology. However, an ambitious initiative, ‘Seabed 2030’ – a collaboration between the United Nations and the Nippon Foundation – is striving to achieve a complete map of the entire ocean floor by the close of this decade.
The Ocean’s Untapped Worlds
As noted by Canadian environmental journalist Laura Trethewey, author of ‘The Deepest Map: The High-Stakes Race to Chart the World’s Oceans’ (2023), ‘The ocean covers 71% of the planet, so it’s just vast, incomprehensibly vast.’
Trethewey highlights that the ocean’s sheer scale has ‘no terrestrial equivalent,’ leading us to compare it with the moon or outer space. Intriguingly, both the moon and Mars boast more comprehensive maps than our own planet’s seafloor.
She passionately argues, ‘We stretch for the stars and dream of building new perfect societies on Mars. But I would point out that we have this otherworldly space right here on Earth that we haven’t finished exploring yet.’
Unlocking the secrets of this underwater universe involves emitting acoustic sound waves in a fan-like pattern from specialized ships, diving robots, and submarines. By meticulously measuring the time it takes for these signals to travel to the seafloor and return, scientists can precisely calculate the depth. Essentially, the longer the sound takes, the deeper the sea.
Multibeam echo-sounding allows for the creation of intricate topographic maps, 3D models, and detailed terrain profiles, even in the most profound depths. ‘There are entire worlds that we’re missing out on right here on Earth — undiscovered mountains and canyons, animals unknown to science, and just huge amounts of data and discoveries that are still out there waiting for us,’ Trethewey explained.
Furthermore, in the context of accelerating climate change, a deeper understanding of the seabed could reveal crucial insights into our planet’s future.
Trethewey emphasizes the historical significance: ‘A lot of the seafloor used to be land. After the last ice age, melting glaciers released water that covered continental shelves that are equal to the size of South America. So there’s a whole other continent down there, another lost Atlantis, that could hold insight into how past human societies navigated sea level rise and what we might do facing the same problem in the future.’
She concludes, ‘Making the map is the first step in making that future a reality.’
The Ambitious Road Ahead
Despite its noble intentions, Seabed 2030 is likely to fall short of its ambitious target. The sheer immensity of the oceans, coupled with a scarcity of specialized ships and sonar equipment, presents significant hurdles. Adding to these challenges are delays from global events like the COVID-19 pandemic and a noticeable decline in political will.
Trethewey points out that when the project began in 2017, ‘the world was a less fractured place, geopolitically.’ Today, however, ‘we live in a more unstable time now and governments are more suspicious and less willing to share maps,’ she explains, clarifying that the technological capability for mapping has existed for decades.
To compensate for these shortfalls, organizers have explored innovative solutions such as drones, crowdsourcing data, and even enlisting superyachts and cruise ships to aid in seafloor mapping efforts, though with limited success.
The Shadow of Exploitation
Deep-sea exploration remains an immense challenge for both human ingenuity and specialized equipment. The harsh marine environment translates into staggering expedition costs, estimated by Trethewey at around $50,000 (€43,000) per day. This financial burden often means that ‘governments and businesses need a good incentive to map, usually for resources, infrastructure, or national security interests.’
The total cost for Seabed 2030 to achieve its goal is estimated to be between $3 billion and $4 billion (€2.5 billion to €3.4 billion), a sum comparable to NASA’s 2020 Mars mission, which successfully landed a rover on the Red Planet.
A significant concern with successful, comprehensive mapping is the potential acceleration of ocean exploitation. Trethewey acknowledges this fear: ‘When people think of maps, they often think of mining and resource extraction. And they’re not wrong. Right now there’s a big push to exploit the deep sea and open the first commercial mines in international waters.’
However, Trethewey expresses hope that these maps will primarily serve scientific research and conservation efforts, much like the Antarctic Treaty of 1959, which designated Antarctica as a scientific preserve for six decades after its full mapping.
Yet, she cautions that even stringent regulations might not safeguard the deep sea as effectively as its current obscurity and challenging accessibility.
Trethewey highlights a critical governance issue: ‘Nearly two-thirds of the ocean and almost half the surface of the planet fall in what’s called international waters, so no country or person has ownership rights over it. This unclear legal status is the major reason why the international ocean is mostly unmonitored and unregulated, and why it’s so hard to tackle crime at sea, whether it’s overfishing or pollution or drug trafficking.’
She concludes that while ‘stricter ocean governance would be welcome,’ the more crucial elements are ‘money and political will.’ Without proper funding for monitoring and enforcement across the ocean’s ‘vast, incomprehensibly vast’ expanse, additional regulations will remain ‘largely meaningless.’