• Question: How much of the ocean have we explored and why not all of it?

    Asked by anon-198925 to Srinath, Natasha, Nana, Luisa, Gautam, Alex on 12 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Srinath Kasturirangan

      Srinath Kasturirangan answered on 12 Mar 2019:

      The ocean floor can be just a few feet deep in places but it can be deeper than mount everest in others. We dont have the technology yet to sweep the entire ocean floor. SONAR technology is used to detect things that are on the ocean floor and there are unmanned submarines that can explore the depths. But 70% of the earth is ocean and to cover every square mile would be a tremendous effort spanning 100s of years! If they could even map out just the Indian ocean, which is the smallest ocean in the world, they would solve the mystery of MH370, the Malaysian airlines plane that vanished without a trace but even that has been a painstakingly slow process and several companies have given up because of the enormity of the task.

    • Photo: Natasha Dowey

      Natasha Dowey answered on 13 Mar 2019:

      I think it comes down to money, technology, and public/political interest. We probably know more about the moon than about our own ocean, and it’s because they ‘space race’ was a massive political battleground that captured the public’s attention, and drove institutions like NASA to develop technology rapidly. There just isn’t that same momentum behind exploring the ocean, which is a shame, because it could tell us a great deal about our planet- like how much life there is living without oxygen and sunlight on the ocean floors, and how far plastics have got into the oceanic system…

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