The study discovered that humans did not see 99.999 % of the sea floor

We have better pictures of Mars more than our ocean hall – a much larger margin than you think.

new Ticket In scientific progress, the numbers of 43,681 knocked deep into the sea that have been conducted since 1958 and came to a wonderful result: We have noticed only 0.001 % of the deep sea floor. This is a slightly larger area than Rod Island – or about ten Belgium size – Across About 70 % From the planet.

The average ocean depth is 12,080 feet (3682 meters), which makes it impossible visually monitoring unless you are two piles or have a clutch in the depths of the seas. As of June 2024, 26.1 % of the World Sea bottom has been appointed, According to NoaAlthough visual observation is a tougher nut.

“This small and biased sample is a problem when trying to describe, understand and manage the global ocean,” Susan Bolton, a researcher in the Ocean Discovery League and a co -author of the paper, said in an email to Gizmodudo.

Scientists estimate that two -thirds of 700,000 to 1,000,000 species in the ocean (except for microorganisms) have not yet been discovered. According to NoaMake a wide amount of the unspecified sea floor a great place for the new search.

This made the clay worse, nearly two -thirds of all visual observations occurred at the sea floor, 200 nautical miles from only three countries: the United States, Japan and New Zealand. Almost every diving was implemented almost by the institutions of only five countries: those mentioned just, in addition to France and Germany.

“Imagine an attempt to tell the story of critical environments such as African savanna or the Amazon rainforest using only satellite images and DNA samples without seeing what he lived there,” Bolton said. “You will not paint a very complete picture.”

Moreover, the study found a great bias to take samples towards shallow water (less than 6562 feet, or 2000 meters), although nearly three quarters of the sea floor lies in deeper. Features such as grooves and cranes – and the specific observation, in that – get all the love, while the vast areas of the lower hills and the plains remain mainly ignored.

We owe ourselves to better understand these vast areas of the depths of the seas, as the research team assumes. They are not wrong. The deep ocean plays an important role in everything from climate organization to oxygen production and medicine, however our visual evaluation has a very small slice of the pie. We miss a huge amount of information not only the creatures that inhabit these areas, but the way these areas contribute to the global processes of the Earth.

Some comprehensive research in the depths of the seas has been born from commercial interests, including research in the Claarion-CLIPERTON region, a region of mining interests in the deep sea. This led to the discovery of hundreds of new species and even hints in New mechanisms to produce oxygenAnd that we have completely missed if the companies are not looking for the area for minerals.

The team’s results come in the wake of the Trump administration Follow -up to the depths of the seasAnd that can display the species that inhabit ecosystems at the sea floor and middle water. In the past six months, two research teams have found certificate From creatures flourish Under the bottom of the seaPay the limits of the place where we know life. The depths of the depths of the seas will investigate these non -proportional tributaries, which may endanger the species before science has the opportunity to determine their identification.

If we want a representative image of the largest day and less understanding on the ground, we will need more countries, more institutions and more tools to capture this. At our current rate, through team accounts, it will take more than 100,000 years to explore the deep sea floor, which prompted the team to invite a “basic change in how to explore and study the global deep ocean”, as mentioned in AAAS press release.

Currently, we take the global ocean policy, climate decisions, and biological diversity assessments with a shocking small sample size. It will be in the interest of science – and stir up the discovery itself – innovation and expand the scope of how to explore the most accessible novels in our world.