Scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography have leveraged two new sources of data to render the world’s most detailed map of the ocean floor.

The new map, which was created using satellite data from both the ESA CryoSat-2 orbiter and NASA Jason-1 satellite, is a marked improvement over its previous incarnation – which was created over 20 years ago. In fact, once stitched together from its composite pieces the new cartographic wonder revealed thousands of undersea mountains and abyssal hills, the world’s most common geographic features.

In a paper recently submitted to the journal Science, the study’s authors outline their new map’s importance: “One of the most important uses of this new marine gravity field will be to improve the estimates of seafloor depth in the 80 percent of the oceans that remains uncharted or is buried beneath thick sediment.”

In addition to sifting through the strata of sediment caking the ocean’s floor, the map revealed new information about the planet’s tectonic plates. Specifically, researchers have been given a glimpse of unknown continental connection in the Atlantic Ocean and eons-old movements in the Gulf of Mexico.

When one considers that more is known about the topography of the Moon and Mars than is known about the Earth’s sea floor the achievement made with Scripps’ map is even more apparent. As techniques for remote sensing become capable of even higher-res surveys, mapping the depths of alien worlds might eventually be in our power.

Image Courtesy of Scripps Institution of Oceanography