New map reveals deepest spot in Southern Ocean around Antarctica

An international team of scientists and cartographers has released the most detailed undersea map of the Southern Ocean around Antarctica ever released.It covers 48 million square kilometers (19 million miles), including the deepest site ever found in the region.

Despite extensive efforts beginning with the voyage of the Challenger in 1873, the bottom of the world‘s oceans remains largely a mystery. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), only 10% of the ocean floor has been mapped with modern sonar methods, and the ocean maps that people see in various places obscure the fact that these maps are based on very different Complete low-resolution data.

This is not surprising, since three-quarters of the Earth’s surface is water and can reach a depth of 10,984 meters. To make matters worse, the ocean floor is highly dynamic and changing at an alarming rate, so organizations like NOAA and the Royal Navy must constantly dispatch survey ships to ensure the navigational charts are up to date.

This means that the kind of comprehensive land map we have, despite its many shortcomings, is simply not practical. Therefore, bathymetric surveys by ships like the British Antarctic Survey’s James Clark Ross must be supplemented by bathymetric surveys by commercial and research vessels as they go about their business.

The latest map, known as the International Bathymetry of the Southern Ocean (IBSCO), will not only help ships navigate safely, but will also provide scientists with an invaluable research tool to better understand the region’s environment, weather and climate. It expands the previous map extent to the north by 10 degrees, covering 2.4 times the area. Divided into 500-meter grid squares, 23% of these map squares have at least one modern sonar depth measurement.

Of particular interest, the new map includes the Factorian Deep, the deepest known point in the Southern Ocean. It is located in the South Sandwich Trench, about 100 kilometers east of the South Sandwich Islands, with a base of 7432 meters. It was discovered in 2019 by the manned submersible DSV Limiting Factor and was named “Limiting Factor” at the suggestion of expedition leader Victor Vescovo.

“This map has huge implications for scientific research,” said Rob Larter, a British Antarctic Survey geophysicist and co-author of the map. “It will help us understand how the shape of the seafloor affects the paths of major ocean currents and the way seawater mixes, which affects how it transports heat and then affects temperatures around the world. This is an extremely important factor in predicting climate change. .”

IBSCO can be downloaded from the project website, and the research was published in Pangea.