The seabed reveal new secrets – ActuNautique

A new map of the seabed has revealed areas still completely unknown

The conquest of space is probably one of the most epic dream of humanity, but more recently, the oceans have not finished to reveal all their secrets, which represent a quest at least as exciting for us as we finally know the topography of Mars better than that of the Earth

The traditional method used to map the oceans has long been based on surveys conducted from ships on the surface, a method of high accuracy but also very slow.

In the late 90s, satellite measurements have revolutionized the field, allowing for maximum coverage in minimum time, with admittedly much less than conventional readings accurately.

The latest map of the seabed dating back nearly 20 years, the new map published in the columns of our colleague Science, an international team has shed new light on areas so close to us, yet so far, 80% of underwater never been polls.

The method used by the researchers, from surveys NASA satellites and ESA, is based the fact that the topography of the seabed, because of gravitational forces, has a direct influence on the water level in line reliefs. A simple methodology to explain priori, but required years of calculations in order to eliminate such bias currents and tides …

In the end, the resulting map, almost exhaustive, is more than two times more accurate than the initial map and can see very prononocés reliefs making less than 5km wide, against 15-20 kms before.

Among the discoveries made at that time, scientists became aware of the existence of thousands of abyssal hills which we had no knowledge of the existence, but also the existence of faults ainciennes, caused by the spacing of the South Atlantic.

Relatives structure of continents, found in the course are very interesting from a geophysical point of view, because they are from the beginning of the separation of the continents when Africa and South America were close.

They assume in this regard fundamental interest … for the offshore oil exploration, as these hidden faults can prove to be a real hazard to fossil fuels.