Open AccessGOMaP: A matchless resolution to start the new millennium
Author(s) -
Vogt Peter R.,
Jung WooYeol
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
eos, transactions american geophysical union
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.316
H-Index - 86
eISSN - 2324-9250
pISSN - 0096-3941
DOI - 10.1029/00eo00180
Subject(s) - geology , bathymetry , seabed , seafloor spreading , backscatter (email) , remote sensing , venus , image resolution , mars exploration program , oceanography , astrobiology , computer science , artificial intelligence , telecommunications , physics , wireless
The world's ocean floor, which is almost equal in area to two moons plus two Mars‐sized planets, is one of the most poorly mapped terrestrial surfaces in our solar system (Figure 1) [ Vogtand Tucholke , 1986]. We propose a multiyear international effort to map the entire ocean floor using hull‐mounted or towed sidescan/swath bathymetric systems.The Global Ocean Mapping Project (GOMaP) would produce a seafloor backscatter image whose lowest spatial resolution, in the deep trenches, would be at least 100 m, comparable to that returned by the Magellan radar mission to Venus or Clementines optical imaging of Earths moon. GOMaP would simultaneously recover the bathymetry, a tight grid of water depths, as the second kind of ocean floor image but at slightly lower spatial resolution than the backscatter image. A GOMaP mission would collect numerous additional piggy‐back data, from seismic reflection profiles of the subbottom to whale counts, at little extra cost.