A MASSIVE, international effort is underway that rivals the space programs of 50 years ago. Rather than charting the moon, however, this effort aims to map the entire ocean floor. Currently it is said that we know more about outer space than about our own oceans, and for most of history that has been true. But by the time I die that should no longer be the case. As a lover of the ocean, I am pretty excited about that.
At the United Nations Ocean Conference held in Lisbon, Portugal last week, it was announced that we have mapped around 25% of the ocean floor. That may not sound like much, but considering it was less than 1% the year I was born, we have made dramatic progress in a relatively short time. In fact, the total area mapped has doubled in just the last few years. In the past year alone, an area equivalent to Europe has been charted.
Who is doing all the work? Governmental organizations such as NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, play a large role. Your tax dollars at work (If only they could administer health care as efficiently as they chart the seas). But much of the work is carried out by private companies, even individuals, who ply the waters every day.
Jamie McMichael-Phillips, director of Seabed 2030, one of the organizations spearheading this multi-national effort, says “One of the messages we’re trying to get across is that we don’t require high-resolution data. Hi-res is nice; we can work with it. But lower resolution is perfectly acceptable.”
Seabed 2030 encourages anyone who ventures away from the land to switch on their sonar equipment and take depth soundings, and not just large vessels. Small ocean-going yachts fitted with data loggers can also help. Victor Vescovo, the Texas billionaire, is using a private submarine to visit the deepest places in the world’s oceans, but everywhere he goes his support ship switches on its echosounder.
“We have a ‘map the gap’ strategy,” Mr. Vescovo told BBC News. “We’re not a commercial outfit so we don’t have to follow the most fuel-efficient routes. When we go on an expedition we ask, ‘what are your priority areas?’; and we divert a little bit to cover those areas.”
Ocean Infinity is building a fleet of autonomous ships that can map far-flung regions too remote for human crews, such as the waters in polar regions.
The advantages of mapping the ocean floor are tremendous. Right now, we are only guessing at where many features such as underwater canyons and mountains are located. Since these areas are home to so much aquatic life, they host a great amount of the earth’s biomass. Fishing could be streamlined and made more efficient. Protection of endangered species could succeed because we would know where to border off preserves.
Ever-increasingly accurate maps of the ocean floor will help scientists understand the seismology of the planet, helping to predict and mitigate disasters such as tsunamis and earthquakes. Search and rescue efforts would benefit greatly from knowing the lay of the underwater land. We will eventually find Malaysian Airlines flight 370, as well as all the ships and submarines sunk in wartime.
We add to our understanding of the oceans every day, and in my lifetime, I expect we will declare we have mapped the entire ocean floor, just as we have mapped the entire moon and the human genome. But the sad truth is, we are polluting the seas faster than we are learning about them. We will become intimately acquainted with the oceans just in time to wave them goodbye. That will be this generation’s legacy to the world.
BC Cook, PhD lived on Saipan and has taught history for 20 years. He currently resides on the mainland U.S.
BC Cook
