The ocean covers approximately 70% of Earth's surface. It's the largest livable space on our planet, and there's more life there than anywhere else on Earth. Through exploration, we're learning more about its biological, chemical, physical, and geological (地质的) aspects. Exploration leads to discovery, but before we can truly explore, we must map.
Seafloor mapping provides a sense of what may lie beneath and guides decisions about where to explore. While the entire seafloor has been mapped using data collected from satellites, these data provide only a general picture of what's there. Detail is limited on these maps, so some important geographical features like seamounts and objects like shipwrecks (失事船只) remain unseen.
As of 2023,24.9% of the global seafloor had been mapped with modern high-resolution (高分辨率的) technology, usually fixed on ships, which can reveal the seafloor in greater detail. While almost 50% of the seafloor beneath U. S. waters had been mapped to these modern standards, the nation's seafloor is larger than the land area of all 50 states. Thus, there's still a significant amount of seafloor left to be mapped at high resolution.
More is known about the seafloor than the species that call the ocean home. Seafloor maps can provide information about potential habitats, but they can't identify species on the seafloor or provide information about how they interact with each other and their environments. Scientists estimate there may be between 700,000 and 1 million species in the ocean. Roughly two-thirds of these species have yet to be discovered or officially described, with almost 2,000 new species accepted by the scientific community each year.
We have a great deal more to learn about our ocean and what lives in it, but progress is being made. We learn more and more each year. But the ocean will never be fully explored. Earth is constantly changing, and it's important to understand these changes given the importance of the ocean in our everyday lives.
