Global Sea Floor Topography from Satellite Altimetry & Ship Depth Soundings

A digital bathymetric map of the oceans with a horizontal resolution of 1 to 12 km was derived by combining available depth soundings with high-resolution marine gravity information from the Geosat and ERS-1 spacecraft. Previous global bathymetric maps lacked features such as the 1600-km long Foundation Seamounts chain in the South Pacific. The new map shows relationships among the distributions of depth, sea floor area and sea floor age that do not fit the predictions of deterministic models of subsidence due to lithosphere cooling but may be explained by a stochastic model in which randomly distributed reheating events warm the lithosphere and raise the ocean floor. [ Reference: Smith, W. H. F., and D. T. Sandwell, Global seafloor topography from satellite altimetry and ship depth soundings, Science, v. 277, p. 1957-1962, 26 Sept., 1997. ] Deposited content: descriptive metadata only; underlying research data are not included.