A new map of the seabed shows thousands of mountains … – RTVE

EUROPE PRESS

Measurements Gravity seafloor provided by the radars CryoSat-2 European Space Agency and Jason-1 NASA , have allowed a scientific team discover that the seafloor houses thousands of unexplored mountains on the borders of the oceans.

The satellite data capture enabled underwater geological features with unprecedented detail , as published by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California (USA).

“The force of gravity reflects the topography and tectonics of the seabed,” he said David Sandwell, a geophysicist at Scripps who led the study published in the journal Science .

Thousands of mountains under Sea

So the new map, obtained from the combination of the existing data and new tools provided by remote sensing has shown the details of thousands of mountains or seamounts.

Soar a mile and up more than 1,600 meters high and some are covered by many kilometers of sediments, as researchers have revealed.

World Map with mountains seafloor red. Picture: Scripps

The map includes a in mid-ocean ridge under the Gulf of Mexico with a length approximately equal to the width of the American state of Texas

also another ridge in the South Atlantic west of Angola about 800 miles long formed just after the South American continent is separated Africa.

An unknown background

“We know much more about the topography of Mars than we know about the seafloor Earth, “said geophysicist at the University of Sydney, Dietmar Müller.

“The Disappearance of Flight MH370 Malaysia Airlines earlier this year has increased global awareness of the limited knowledge of our depths of the ocean, “he noted.

Müller has indicated that about 71% of Earth’s surface is covered by water and about 90% of ocean floor is unexplored by research vessels using acoustic beam to map the depths.

In addition to pure scientific value, the new map could have applications for the military and oil exploration, said Sandwell.

Advantages of satellite data

Müller said the findings with satellite data on the topography of the seabed may be less accurate than the acoustic beam methods used by ships .

“However, the overall coverage is much better and our method is much cheaper, especially since we are mostly using satellite data that were collected for another purpose , “said Müller, who estimated that a complete study of the deep ocean using boats cost about 4,000 million euros and take many years.

CryoSat-2 monitors changes in ice thickness marine floating in the polar oceans and variations in the thickness of the vast ice sheets covering Greenland and Antarctica. Jason-1 maps the change in the topography of the ocean due to ocean currents.