THE LAST MYSTERIOUS PLACE ON EARTH

“We are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.” William James (American philosopher, historian 1842-1910)????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????We know more about Mars, Venus, and the Solar system than we know about the 40 000 miles of water around the planet Earth. Most of it is invisible for it is covered by a dense cloak of the ocean’s waters, most 2.5 miles deep and more. Invert the Earth we would see mountains as high as Mount Everest or as deep as the Grand Canyon. The seafloor is more seismically active than land with underwater explosions, volcanoes, sizzling hot springs, shifting tectonic plates, and shuddering earthquakes. Everything about the seafloor is bigger, bolder, and more extreme than the quiet terrain we know on land.

Here is the story of?THE DEEPEST MAP,?The High-Stakes Race to Chart the World’s Oceans by?Laura Trethewey.?Five oceans, the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Indian, the Arctic, and the Southern cover about 70 percent of the Earth. Imagine two-thirds of our planet is water, and we know little about what lies beneath all this water. Now the race is on that by 2030 the ocean’s floor will all be mapped, following global efforts from advances in technology to recent scientific discoveries to tales of dangerous dives in untested and costly submersibles. By mapping the ocean floor, scientists are actively tracing our roots back to the most inhospitable places on Earth, where life began.

Of course, protecting the seafloor is part of the search, whereby it also has commercial potential, for this race has the political power to wrestle over the riches that lie at the bottom of the sea. It will all depend on our ability to protect this vast, precious, and often ignored resource. Every coastal nation control 12 nautical miles and a vast marine territory of 200 nautical miles offshore.

The history of mapping the oceans goes back a few hundred years. It was seriously started by Prince Albert l of Monaco in 1903 and is titled GEBCO (General Bathymetric Chart of Oceans– Bathymetric is the measurement of the depth of water in oceans, seas, and lakes.) Prince Albert was the precursor to Jacques Cousteau and other ocean explorers. Many of today’s seafloor measurements of more than 1,800 feet deep are confidential. It is hard to overstate how different Seabed 2030 will be from the ocean maps that preceded it. For very long, the modus operandi for ocean mapping was to hoard and hide information. State spies and map bootleggers circled to steal maps for profit or espionage.

The deep sea is one the most poorly understood ecosystem in the world and that would include the large-scale extraction of precious metals and minerals. Many countries have set a fifteen-year moratorium on mining the international seafloor, a precautionary pause on deep-sea mining until more is known about its impact on marine life. Now, the question remains, what does the future of mapping the seafloor look like? There are Saildrones, which have amassed tens of millions of ocean images. Saildrones combine solar-powered meteorological and oceanographic sensors to perform autonomous long-range data collection missions in the harshest ocean environments. The Seadrome personnel clarifies that technology is not intended to replace the function of ocean mapper, but rather augment and extend ocean mapping’s reach, it also means and includes extreme regions on Earth that are too inaccessible, and too challenging to survey. The goal is to decrease the need for humans to go to sea and chart the ocean floor, making mapping faster, cheaper, and more environmentally friendly.

In this new world of ocean mapping, people will be superfluous at sea. Yet one factor stays the same, a human has always been at the helm. Hopefully, he or she will have a depth of understanding and respecting the risks of destroying the oceans. These oceans have given us much, and the seafloor is also a quest to understand ourselves. Maybe also the saying ‘a map of the world that does not include utopia is not worth glancing at.’ Now that we have gathered so much knowledge, we should be wise to protect this knowledge of the vast, precious resource.

Now, as we are learning, thousands of years later, the oceans are rising again, this time as a result of humans burning fossil fuels, threatening 400 million people worldwide. With humanity’s historic neglect and fear of the ocean, one wonders whether our species is the best custodian of a map larger than the habitat on Earth. Perhaps we may even solve the greatest mystery of all: where did we come from and how did we get here? The birthplace of all life on Earth is down there somewhere hidden in the cracks and fissures on the seafloor.

“The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.” Jacques Cousteau (French oceanographer, film director 1910-1997)????