| Summary: | The gap in our understanding of Earth is largely because resources have been more readily allocated to exploring the surface of other planets, as well as the fact that mapping beneath water is a complex business, especially at great depths. Water absorbs, reflects and refracts light to such an extent that it is difficult to “see” through it with visual media for more than a few dozen metres. Huge swathes of the oceans, especially those far removed from coastal and national areas, are still inadequately mapped. Environments such as those beneath the polar ice shelves and pack ice-covered oceans are as unfamiliar to us today as the deep ocean was for pioneering ocean-floor mappers over a hundred years ago. But today, with the advent of satellite mapping, multibeam sonar and other advances in remote sensing, we have access to an increasingly broad suite of technologies which make it possible to map the world’s seafloor in more detail than ever. OPENASFA INPUT Published Not Known
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