Why All Ocean Maps Are Wrong*

*The ocean is deeper than you think! And our maps of the deep sea are surprisingly bad. We know less about the ocean floor than we do the surface of Mars.
Luckily, new tech is helping us change that...
If you want to know how we’re mapping the deep sea, watch our longer Huge If True episode!
If you'd like to support optimistic tech stories, subscribe for more.
#shorts #tech #ocean #deepocean #deepsea #stem #science

[@DB-me7ol]

I work in an ocean awareness organisation and I am always blown away by how amazing our oceans are. 🌊🦀🐳

[@hienable6933]

Wtf is an "Ocean Awareness" like who tf doesn't know about the ocean??

[@to_ur_heart]

@@hienable6933 You, because you would know what an ocean awareness organization is.

[@hienable6933]

@@to_ur_heart I know the ocean exists you dummy. Everyone does.

[@massimookissed1023]

It must be working, because I am aware of oceans.

[@to_ur_heart]

Why everybody acting like they know everything? Some of y’all don’t know how many countries are where, so don’t go in the ocean

[@kurosakiclips2k227]

That "Water Sucks" was so personal.

[@waterloowar]

Yeah, I don’t like her style. Pretend to be expert in many areas.

[@falcon7036]

she is 60% water and she do sucks both literally and instinctively

[@agereartist3763]

​@@waterloowarWhat? That didnt really have to do with the parent comment

[@dread_nought]

@@waterloowar Any person somewhat literate or competent in science will understand this, and her job as a science communicator is to know how to connect to an audience through casual statements like this one. Your insecurity's really showing bud

[@waterloowar]

@@agereartist3763 I am saying my feeling only. not asking you to agree

[@timholgate6639]

Hi there! Hydrographic Surveyor/Marine Geophysicist here. Couple of things I'd like to clear up: 1.5km resolution is the resolution we have in the centre of the Pacific. The important areas, and by that I mean continental shelves, are often at 20cm resolution due to the combined work of Oil and Gas, Renewables, Researchers and cable routers. Further more, the only way we really scan the seabed is by Multibeam Echosounders (MBES for short). Now mathematically, data quality from these reduce with distance as they fire a wedge perpendicular to the vessel. The deeper you go, the further that swath has to go. The beams scatter and hence you end up with a handful of soundings per 100m. Hence why the only way to increase resolution is to decrease the swath width, and collect at a slower rate, or drop the altitude of the MBES using ROV, AUV, which move slower than surface vessels

[@joaopedroandsan2172]

What is the use of mapping the sea flor? People allways say "we only know 5%" but, as you said, we know the important parts well enough

[@timholgate6639]

@@joaopedroandsan2172 well most cable companies like to know if their cable is gonna break where they lay it

[@demonsun]

Hydrographer here as well. A big problem is that that data isn't very public from a lot of sources that have good high resolution data. If the oil and gas industry would share more of their data publicly, we'd have better resolution for the public, and that 20cm resolution in under 200m waters would be seen by a lot more people. But also, the other problem is that the seafloor changes a lot in some places, so it's a never ending challenge to map.

[@timholgate6639]

@@demonsun When even bedforms are moving 2m a day it's a real headache

[@FctHvn]

Holy yap! Get a publisher.

[@cameroneridan4558]

Born too early to explore deep space and too late to explore the high seas, but right in time to explore the _low_ seas :D

[@samiraperi467]

*goes wading*

[@joaopedroandsan2172]

Borring

[@iSlutCake_RobotsInDisguise]

No one asked what your mother says Everytime she looks at you😂​@@joaopedroandsan2172

[@NoneOfTheAbove123]

I am studying geology and I can second this.

[@tylerm1439]

I am not studying geology or anything related to the ocean and I third it 😂

[@Maximus5641]

i'm learning geography so i fourth this

[@basrengangetch.2042]

Yooo geological engineering here. Fifth this

[@Daredevil98812]

I don't know shit about anything but i sixth this.

[@ermachotaru7744]

internet user here and i seventh this

[@triptidimri-oc8ue]

Thank you Natalie Portman for the update. ❤

[@Blissbb]

🤣

[@DL-df3lg]

Hahah foreal she’s like her cousin or something fuckin gorgeous

[@jayus2033]

@@DL-df3lgyeah she dated my boyfriend

[@IAMEDGINGRN]

​@@jayus2033yeah i dated your Boyfriend too

[@jayus2033]

@@IAMEDGINGRN nah

[@gamesingreen8449]

I’ve seen enough monster movies to know this won’t end well…

[@eheboi9278]

I'm craving for some action

[@gozebone7133]

If resolution of mars is 5*5=25m^2 and resolution of ocean is 1500*1500=2250000m^2, then it's 90000 times less details, not 300

Exactly and so many people get confused about this.

[@thebesuto]

Exactly. 300^2=90000

[@kylewolfe_]

I think she fucked up and compared the Mars DEM resolution to the Earth's surface DEM instead of the ocean bathymetry. Mars: 5 m × 5 m = 25 m^2 Earth surface: 0.3 m × 0.3 m = 0.09 m^2 25/0.09 = 278 ≈ 300

[@kylewolfe_]

Oh nevermind she must've just been making a linear comparison instead of an areal comparison. 1500/5 = 300. I agree with you though, you should be comparing areas and not linear dimensions.

[@nycrdeary]

This exactly. One pixel of the ocean floor covers the same area as 90000 pixels would on mars.

[@grnarsch5287]

Would also be interesting to know how many caves are mapped

[@Raiyven79]

Doubt it's more than 2%

[@michelerusconi]

​@@Raiyven79probably wayyy less

[@calamaricalamity6757]

we don't even know about 90% of caves

[@beforedrrdpr]

I think it should be more than the oceans

[@alaina4070]

​@Raiyven79 the fact you even put a whole number is bold. I going to take a guess that it's 0.002 percent are even known of. Now graphed 0.0002. Roughly 20% of the ocean floor has even been mapped!

[@emil5911]

In Nordic countries in Scandinavia, this is not the case. There is a company called Olex that sells seafloor map data. This is very popular, especially on fishing vessels that require relatively accurate seafloor maps. The way it works is that they gather data from sonars on all boats where it is installed and compile this data. We have had this on one of our boats for at least 10 years. However, it recently came to light that this has been very unfortunate as this data is something that Russia has had unrestricted access to, resulting in highly detailed maps of the seafloor around, for example, Norway and military sea installations.

[@PhilipX2030]

This is seriously not good. The helpful ingenuity became a National Defense liability

[@halcritic648]

Don't be paranoid. Every country (including russia) has extensive public gps data about their shores. You can see at least 5939 different maps just for russia by searching on google

[@harbirsingh7266]

Crowdsourcing is awesome, but the video is talking about the ocean floor where almost no ships have ever been to. The Pacific ocean is huge and travelling to every square kilometre is a tedious task.

[@rain_soothes_all]

cool, didint know about this. Thanksn for the info

[@michaelwright1234567]

Great information ❤️

[@batcat4136]

“Cartographically speaking, water sucks” had me laughing for way longer than it should’ve

[@Fatality2013]

Who said that?

[@rutomeds]

sometimes awful jokes can make us laugh too, i agree

[@nxibba]

staring at a wall would be funnier than this comment

[@greg.peepeeface]

that's why the real aliens hide under the oceans

[@preran01]

As long as that doesn’t lead to taking all the life out of the deep as we do with the surface, this is interesting

[@JHimminy]

Lol, no they’re doing it for “science,” not economic exploitation and military control.

[@ralucapop1467]

Well said!!!

[@charliemayfilms1550]

We already have :(

[@ralucapop1467]

@@charliemayfilms1550 Not yet,but unfortunately we are getting there :(

[@charliemayfilms1550]

@@ralucapop1467 well coral reefs are bleached and species are dying bc of fishing nets, and massive garbage patches etc so idk I'd say we have. The ocean is resilient I will agree. I don't want it's life to be sucked dry, but it is being drained. Luckily it is inhabitable by us so at least (hopefully) we wont be building infastructure down there

[@RobertDouglasLW]

Detailed questionnaires for anglerfish is my humble suggestion.

[@EminencePhront]

I believe you mean deep sea fanglyfishes.

[@RobertDouglasLW]

@@EminencePhront Indeed I do. The fanglyfishes of the order fanglidae in the fancypantstacean family.

[@Dorphie]

The conspiracy people who "find" landed motherships and pyramids under the ocean using Google maps need to see this.

[@metroidjones122]

10/10 Also, the video about ocean maps is good.

[@nobody-u-know]

Not to mention that the ground of the ocean is much less important than the animals that live in the water in those areas

[@zzulm]

Corporations want to drill the ocean floor for oil, national gas and pipelines, no matter the undiscovered species that die in the process.

[@mantasna7025]

@@zzulm tbh some of those creatures might be able to defeat us lmao. There are literal aliens deep in the ocean

[@eddebrock]

That's why I hate people who go "too late to explore the world, too early to explore the universe" Then when you bring up exploring the ocean, they suddenly realize they have a Netflix show to binge.

[@aashig99]

What’s the Netflix show called?

[@LilYet]

to early to explore the ocean then what am i gonna do just go out with my billion dollar submarine and diving gear and start swimming around?

[@IJMPVI]

​@@aashig99I think op meant that people use that as an excuse to not explore after finding out there IS still a lot to discover

[@alaina4070]

Most of those people would've stayed in their villages anyways! It takes either being insane, arrogance, ignorance, or balls of steel to explore the unknown.

[@aashig99]

@@IJMPVI oooh 😭 I misunderstood that one completely 🤚

[@chaosreigner869]

Something I was told is that we do know what most of the unexplored ocean contains. The thing is that it’s almost completely empty swaths of seafloor containing almost nothing of interest. So until now scientists had no reason to check it out, as it would have been too expensive for very little gain.

[@Nounce]

"On google maps it looks like we know so much" Google maps: ocean is blue

[@hambonesternbeck7595]

Watched your full version very cool ❤😊

[@sophisticated-cactus]

Last words before the Titanic submarine went underwater

[@lt.loomis8176]

"So scientists found X thing that you don't know about (but I also didn't until 25 mins ago) and here's X reason why it's a problem and here's X and X terms that I felt unsure about using until just looking them up 5 mins before filming." 😂😂😂

[@FreejackVesa]

My brother is a hydrographer / marine biologist / sonar expert for NOAA. This is all he does, map the ocean floor.

[@hoyit]

I remember watching Planet Earth’s Ocean episode and one of my buddies being like, “Dude look at that thing! That’s a fuckin alien! If that thing was coming at you in the air you’d be like, ‘Ahhhhhhh!!!!” Lol. So true.

[@nDiggs]

As a kid I just knew somehow aliens were real! Then I learned about deep sea creatures and boom! Aliens were actually real

[@LilYet]

an alien has to be extraterrestrial

[@lizardbyte]

Precambrian life growth!😊

[@dynastyfamily00]

"We know less about the ocean than we do Mars". Goes to speak with Aquaman and Martian Man hunter: "Not missing much according to two guys I know".

[@clutchnshift1]

It’s the other “What’s up, my guys!” girl!

[@kaivoormolen1825]

In 2014, after a Malaysian Airlines plane went missing in the Indian Ocean, a part of it's flight map was mapped with the best possible sonar equipment at the time. It's crazy to see the amount of detail that is visible compared to the lower resolution areas around it. And however the plane was unfortunately never found, multiple research groups have made use of this particularly high-detail bit of ocean map to do research about our ocean floor.

[@austinli8891]

mh 370

[@demonsun]

And that resolution is still pretty low, on average only about 30m resolution at best because of the extreme depths. Think of sonar as a cone with a fixed number of pings within that cone. In shallow water lots of pings hit things and it doesn't spread out a lot. In deep water, it spreads out to many times wider, with less pings hitting. So in deep water you cover more area, but get a lower resolution as a result.

[@vasilikardaris-pv9wg]

You learn something new everyday ❤

[@tupoufaaui614]

cant wait to see all the old buildings or lost statues and etc. that could possibly help us know about our ancestors lives

[@Botmini17]

You sound like you’d say “App” really good

[@valfomania6942]

I would LOVE a huge if true of 40 minutes or more, or a podcast of you talking on more detail about the subjects you talk about on your videos!!

[@IAMEDGINGRN]

Same

[@geo3106]

Technically, if you want to talk about the absolute change in resolution, you would have to square the factor of proportionality. So our current maps of the ocean show 90,000 times less the number of pixels than our maps of mars. Edit: thanks @kylewolfe_ for correcting my calculation. It’s 90,000, not 9,000 as I previously wrote.

[@kylewolfe_]

Wouldn't it be 90,000?

[@geo3106]

@@kylewolfe_Oh yeah my bad thanks.

[@kartingman5961]

"Cartographically speaking, water sucks" is a sentence I did not expect to hear

[@josephjackson1956]

I mean when Mars’ surface is visible from space and the ocean floor is under miles of water, it’s easy to see why we don’t know much about it.

[@tahyang]

First. Yeah it's easier to build a spaceship than a submarine.

[@Gentleman...Driver]

No, its not. But as she mentioned in the video, it is very hard to survey the ocean because light doesnt get to the ocean floor...

[@tahyang]

The bottom of the ocean is a less hospitable place than the vacuum of space. In many aspects yes, a spaceship is easier to build than a submarine. A spaceship must be designed to contain roughly one atmosphere of pressure whereas a submarine must be built to withstand many hundreds of atmospheres. You could survive exposure to a vacuum, but you could not survive exposure at the bottom of the ocean.

[@Gentleman...Driver]

@@tahyang The most complex machines that were ever designed by humans are spaceships. Period.

[@tahyang]

@@Gentleman...Driver the Large Hadron Collider would like a word but uh...if you say so.

[@Gentleman...Driver]

@@tahyang I have to disagree. But I feel like I could post a complete essay about that topic and I wouldnt convince you. Thats okay, and I wont try it. So... have a nice day. 🙂

[@Samuel-ku1qb]

I have thalassophobia. I’m glad we know so little about this death trap of a geographical concept.

[@stephenphillips6245]

Never get lost at sea....so much of it is unexplored.

[@eaglevision9791]

I always believed a marine biologist would be an amazing career.

[@michaelrhine3152]

Commenting for the KZbin algorithm

[@zwe4]

Hey man that’s some really informational stuff (Im 6’3 )

[@massimookissed1023]

That's cool, because you can wade into the ocean to a depth of 5'9" and you won't drown.

[@justme-ef3kg]

As a geophysics student I’m surprised that we aren’t doing enough to explore the ocean and yes the technology isn’t that advanced yet but we still can gather more details with technologies we have right now like seismic exploration

[@Destroyahx2]

What is the point, though? It isn't like the majority of the oceans are filled with life. They are relatively empty.

[@mcmac8212]

Love when shorts are a preview to a longer interesting video instead of mindless scrolling, I wish that was more common!

[@todd_vincy4710]

why is she getting beautiful day by day?

[@dannystark7668]

Idk

[@dr.butttoot9512]

Imagine being that absolutely stunningly gorgeous and that's her weak point 😂

[@tinapreston643]

Love your channel

[@user-tz5uq2bt1s]

As a former submariner, I can tell you that we get new ocean floor maps all the time. Like ALL THE TIME.

[@nobudget2547]

More knowledge , More questions . No knowledge , No question . That is why I am at peace .☺

[@jamilchoudhury3]

R. I. P. ⚰️

[@nobudget2547]

​@@jamilchoudhury3same to you .☺

[@jamilchoudhury3]

@@nobudget2547Yeah , The same goes back to you again. 🙃

[@nobudget2547]

​@@jamilchoudhury3here , back to you again .🙂🙃

[@jamilchoudhury3]

@@nobudget2547 Here R. I. P. , You Being at Peace , seem more worthy. 🙃🙃

[@joemyheck1]

So there could be a submerged spaceship on the ocean floor, and we wouldn’t even know it

[@JPLowe]

someones gotta go down there themselves with just some jerky, water, flashlight, and a sleeping bag.

[@chriscumo]

It’s so much better when they don’t move their hands sooo much during the video 🙌🏼

[@gaines8807]

Why we mapping other planets when we haven’t finished ours yet 😂

[@JohnFKennedy420]

Loving this channel ngl

[@veritasdeutsch6608]

"Hoist the Colors" starts playing

[@user-br8ep8gb3g]

Cleo, love your content, love your delivery and you are lovely!!

[@grzegorzlurka6755]

Aliens Dont Exist! Mfs In the ocean:

[@BL4CK5M1TH0]

"If we can dive deeper, we can soar higher"

[@nitro5247]

Your videos make me so happy

[@southerner_]

This channel is underrated! ❤️

[@Fuerwahrhalunke]

Not seeing or knowing what's beneath me must be one of my biggest fears. Just imagining swimming in the middle of the Atlantic is sending down shivers down my spine.

[@sorrowsorrow6759]

We know....what THEY want us to know.

[@nikolabulog4659]

Well, that is a quick change from surprisingly to understandably.

[@amelialee2142]

Thank you for addressing this issue!!!

[@Jamesified740]

Sometimes I wonder what some random unidentified fish at the bottom of the sea feels when some random robot giving off a funny electrical current comes by and starts snapping some bright flash of something they haven’t experienced before disappearing back up

[@Ibloop]

I want to build a deep underwater robot just for fun, but I realized that I’m probably not going to get a signal from so deep, and making it an autonomous AI is tedious and boring. I’ll stick with flying things

[@NotesApp]

I remember when I was growing up I thought like “why would anyone be a marine biologist, there’s nothing left to find”

[@QuiteACat]

Godzilla could be flipping us off right now.

[@heyspookyboogie644]

It would be so much easier to map the ocean if there wasn’t an ocean in the way.

[@pittiebaby]

Its funny because, we find lots of aliens every day but we name them and they become a new animal 😂

[@shanetylerrushworth7090]

This is how horror apocalypse movies start

[@indrarahmadani8373]

Can you make an alter ego YT channel where you're talking about pessimistic science and tech stories

[@anipopdrama8110]

My thing is leave the ocean alone, we have a history of being curious, finding things, then ruining em, leave the ocean alone.

[@RebeccaEWebber]

I'm glad for this. I hope the more we know, the more we can appreciate it!

[@itsallspent]

Pleasing refreshing information. Well presented😊

[@maranatha_777]

I love your enthusiasm

[@markwhitney4580]

It is hard to read an ocean map, because they tend to spill if you don't keep them level.

[@holyfamilycrusader3512]

Wow, I didn’t sea this coming

[@willfungusman8666]

Wow that's some crack reporting bro. Have we still not sent a man to Mars either?

[@Fokkas]

I gotta say, you're one of the best scientific journalists I've ever seen. Keep up the great work.

[@alexanderjonsson4891]

We do have very detailed mapping or ongoing mapping in most of the high important areas especially the costal area where most biodiversity is located.

[@jbjb1924]

Great information video beautifully well explained

[@Kokoda144]

Navigational charts have a good amount of detail

[@macflod]

My job is to maintain and fix the oceanographic hand hydrographic survey equipment on ships. There is and has been technology around for a long time to map seabed but its very expensive business. Firstly, Its only really done when someone or company has a motivation to pay for it- ie they think there is oil etc there, they want to construct something like an oil pipeline, run a telecoms cable, install a renewable energy generator like wind turbine or tidal turbines etc. Second is that the deeper the water the more problematic, expensive and complicated it becomes to do. Sound waves are whats used and unlike in air where we use electromagnetic and lightwaves , sound takes noticeable time to travel even in water so in deeper water it introducing delays and its extra complication. Also time taken to get equipment deployed to depth increases a lot and its all extra costs 3rd problem is that the seabed changes- its like sand dunes in the desert, but on a smaller scale. Things move, its dynamic. Change might not be as big as in desert but in areas where the information on the seabed is required its often checked regularly because changes occur, naturally and also due to fishing nets getting dragged along. 4th although we can get detailed chart build up to see whats there its done by sound, so you can see whats there in terms of an outline but not detailed to our eyes. Imagine you took a plaster cast of the seabed, you would see the peaks and troughs, depressions (pock marks), rocks, shipwrecks and other things but you would not know detail. What we see is effectively like this. To take photographs would be so time consuming as light doesn’t travel far in water so only a small area can be seen at a time.

[@FrankensteinDZWOT]

You're so good at making videos Cleo where did you acquire all these skills 😅?

[@machinemaker2248]

Complicating the issue is that water blocks radio signals, so no remote control. Everything must be connected by wires or manned.

[@thomaslopez4097]

In the pics of the research devices, they use "sea gliders" that are autonomous & travel a pre-planned course & speed at different depths with different sensors. Then, when they surface, they transmit via Iridium back to the collecting point. Really cool stuff, just going to take time as there are various dangers such as weather, currents, fish nets etc... that affect those collection devices.

[@christopherdeans2732]

We know enough to run all the cables in the ocean to connect the Internet

[@Stephen-ie7uq]

The second they increase the resolution of the oceans we'll all become rogue treasure hunters. The results will be disastrous😂

[@Sophisticated_Pickle]

It's like it's harder to scan the entire ocean floor then to send a satellite to Mars

[@keithtaylor6259]

The ocean bottom is always changing because the sand on the bottom shifts due to hurricanes and earthquakes

[@dildoshwagins2222]

I love learning thank you

[@swagmuffin9000]

Guy making map at google: "It's all blue right? There's no way I can get this wrong"

[@dougiesweeny4833]

Thanks for the information greatly appreciated 🙏

[@johanweakley2658]

Ex hydrographic surveyor here who worked around the SA coast. Remote sensing over large ocean areas is not possible, so as she says, " cartographically water sucks". Oceanographic surveys are tedious and in many ways prohibitively expensive.

[@floresgt3]

It used to be “ you know we know more about the universe then we do about the ocean”. Now, “the surface of mars” OMG

[@V4nesza]

What if the aliens were fussing about for so long just lives so far underwater lmao

[@user-oq8le8xq8y]

" Cartographically water sucks" was unexpected

[@Payton3434]

Well, we can see Mars.

[@MDE128]

I hope they discover sea monsters in the middle of the deep ocean.

[@PowerAppsGuru]

So they aren’t wrong? They are just less detailed than the land maps lol