Scientists Have Explored Just 0.001% of Deep Ocean Floor, New Study Finds

A comprehensive analysis in Science Advances reveals that humans have explored less than 0.001% of the deep seafloor -- an area equivalent to merely one-tenth the size of Belgium. Oceanographer Katherine Bell and colleagues at the Ocean Discovery League compiled data from approximately 44,000 deep-sea dives conducted between 1958 and 2024, finding that expeditions have concentrated overwhelmingly around waters near the United States, Japan, and New Zealand.

The study exposes significant gaps in ocean exploration, with vast regions -- particularly the Indian Ocean -- remaining virtually untouched by direct observation. Much of the existing dive data remains inaccessible to scientists, locked away by private companies.

OceanX

[OffTheLip]

Exploring the deep oceans along with space gets my vote. Seems as habitable and a lot closer.

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[Cpt_Kirks]

And like space, undersea exploration is a lot quicker and safer with drones.

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[DesScorp]

And like space, undersea exploration is a lot quicker and safer with drones.

Yep. But the thing is, it'll still be disappointing. We're hoping to find the Kraken, or something exotic down there, but most of the time it's just sand and tubeworms and small fish adapted to the pressure. As someone once put it, "We got to the Moon and there were no Klingons there, so we stopped going to the Moon". Our imaginations tend to be more exciting than reality when it comes to this type of exploration, so it makes it hard to get support for it.

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[ndsurvivor]

It seems to me that an undersea probe could be powered RTG's, like the Voyager probes were. It could last 50+ years exploring, maybe coming to the surface once and awhile to transmit data. It seems like a worthwhile thing to do.

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[Jogar the Barbarian]

Hmm, I think it would take way more power than RTGs could generate to navigate the ocean floor. At least in space, you have Newton's first law going for you. Maybe we could cybernetically enhance anglerfish and leverage them?

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[ndsurvivor]

An advantage in using RTG's the sea as opposed to space, is that it would be easy to create and maintain a temperature differential. The voyager probes had a challenge to get rid of heat. A wild guess is that 1kW could be generated constantly for 50 years. That seems like it would be enough I do like your idea of putting cameras or sensors on fish though......

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[alvinrod]

Unless you were working in the deep sea, I don't see much purpose of living there. Space has the benefit of getting humanity off planet and working towards inhabiting others instead r being able to travel to other solar systems. There could certainly be valuable minerals in the depths of the ocean, so it's worth exploring, but permanent habitats outside of a research station don't seem practical.

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[Hadlock]

We've found a handful of complex life living deep in the sea near volcanic vents, including a snail that builds its shell primarily out of iron. So finding exotic life with different primary processes is valuable but... yeah deep sea exploration budgets are probably about correct until we find something of unique value down there, like a giant gold field or something. Oil fields have all mostly been mapped so far.

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[smooth wombat]

Space has the benefit of getting humanity off planet and working towards inhabiting others instead r being able to travel to other solar systems.

Don't worry. Our fearless DOGE leader has it all figured out. We'll go to Mars because someday, the Sun [space.com] will destroy Earth [yahoo.com] when it swells in size. Magically, this same Sun, when it swells in size, will not touch Mars [uniladtech.com].

Obviously this is where all the aliens

[ZERO1ZERO]

Aliens, UAP etc reside. Its only a matter of time before we colonise them.

Costs of a colony?

[TJHook3r]

Anyone care to compare costs for establishing a colony of 500 people around the deep ocean floor against a colony on Mars? I suppose the former would be a cool stunt rather than a genuine alternative in the event of a natural disaster...but I'd be interested to know if large structures are even possible

Analogy sucks

[backslashdot]

What kind of a stupid analogy is it? Look at your home, how much of it have you "explored" .. to what resolution? Do you know the configuration of your wall to the molecular level? Do ytoun know where every bacteria or mold spore sits. Do you know the surface toopology to the atomic level? I'll bet everything you know about your house, what everything looks like and its characteristics, can fit on a tiny memory chip. That's not more than a few tens of GB of data compressed .. that includes all the texture i

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[ndsurvivor]

It also does not line up with facts, to me. There is a series on Disney Plus that "rolls back the sea", I watched one episode. They said that the Gulf of Mexico (yes Mexico), has been completely mapped by Oil Companies, and the data is available. I guess most of it is also about 200 feet deep. It was probably excluded because it is 'shallow', but maybe they should have included a phase like, we haven't mapped most of what is deeper than X feet (or meters).

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[Woeful Countenance]

"Mapped" and "explored" are different. Given that the summary says "data from approximately 44,000 deep-sea dives", "explored" seems to mean "people have gone there and looked". (They may or may not include remotely operated submersibles.)

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[Woeful Countenance]

They do [nature.com]. "Bell is the founding director of the Ocean Discovery League in Saunderstown, Rhode Island, a non-profit organization that is helping to develop affordable remotely operated vehicles and is leading an effort to compile a list of 10,000 potential deep-dive sites that could begin to sample a representative portion of the unexplored abyss."

So, no conflict of interest or anything, this is just fishing for publicity.

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[Woeful Countenance]

"... that .001% includes random sampling all over the seafloor ...."

To be fair, the summary says, "expeditions have concentrated overwhelmingly around waters near the United States, Japan, and New Zealand", so one of their points is that the sampling has NOT been random.

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[rossdee]

"expeditions have concentrated overwhelmingly around waters near the United States, Japan, and New Zealand"

I think there has been quite a bit of exploration in the southern indian ocean, but they still haven't found MH370.

Good!

[Gravis Zero]

When it comes to humans, exploration is usually followed by exploitation, exploitation is followed by devastation, and devastation followed by extinction. I'm not saying we shouldn't learn about it, I'm saying the human-race refuses to act ethically with regard to natural habitats. If you think we've changed then you are ignorant of our most recent ocean exploits like deep sea oil drilling and vacuuming up sea floors to harvest diamonds.

Humanity needs to grow up before it can be trusted with anything of real value.

Unit conversion

[FreeBSDbigot]

1 decibelgium is approximately equal to 1.06 billion square smoots, which, if you ask me, is plenty of the ocean floor that humans have explored.

"one-tenth the size of Belgium"

[hcs_$reboot]

Belgium is not a relevant unit for Americans.