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The recent reports revealed that, Scientists have developed a novel map of the entire world’s seafloor, displaying a brighter image of the compositions that actually formed the cordial, least explored parts of the ocean. The study was published in the ‘Science’ journal.
The achievement was based on accessing 2 intact streams of satellite data.
Recently developed map shows thousands of unexplored mountains that are growing from the seafloor, named as seamounts. These seamounts are eventually appeared in the map, along with the novel hints of continents formation.
The scientists have merged the existing data with the enhanced remote sensing instruments, which helps them to explore ocean expanding centers and small studies remote ocean basins.
However, the researchers mapped the earthquakes too and found that the seamounts and the earthquakes are connected often. Moreover, researchers told that, these seamounts are once volcanoes. That is why they normally discovered nearby tectonically active plate boundaries, mid-ocean ridges and sub-ducting zones.
The researchers from California’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) stated that, the novel map is as authentic as the previous one developed 20 years ago.
Don Rice, program director in the National Science Foundation’s Division of Ocean Sciences, which funded the research, said that, “the team of researched have developed a powerful tool in order to explore the regional seafloor and geophysical processes.”
The map, which was developed by using a scientific model in order to capture the gravity measurements of the ocean seafloor, also extracts data from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) CryoSat-2 satellite.
David Sandwell, lead author of the paper and geophysicist at SIO stated that, “Things you could see very clearly are the most common land-form on the planet, named as abyssal hills.”
Furthermore the researchers said that, the map offers a window within the tectonics of deep oceans. Alternatively, this map also offers a base for the upcoming Google’s ocean maps version. Researchers believed that it would cover large voids between shipboard depth profiles.
Formerly undetected features include newly exposed continental connections across South America and Africa and new evidence for seafloor spreading ridges in the Gulf of Mexico. The ridges were active 150 million years ago and are now buried by mile-thick layers of sediment.
Brian Galloway
Brian’s philosophy is pretty straightforward: easy living, wishful thinking, heavy criticizing. Despite the fact that he wouldn’t go as far as describe himself a conspirationist, Brian does take everything with a grain of sand. He loves following every lead when covering a story and mostly enjoys to cover politics and US news.
