Texas-based offshore surveying company Ocean Infinity have agreed to donate 120,000 square kilometers of seafloor bathymetric data to the Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project, for inclusion in the global map of the ocean floor.
Ocean Infinity’s data was collected by a fleet of eight Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) during its recent Indian Ocean search for the missing Malaysian airliner, MH370. The suite of AUVs enabled Ocean Infinity to gather data much more quickly than traditional mapping missions.
Several research organizations, academic institutions and other regional mapping initiatives have long been contributing data for the production of a global map of the seafloor, but the Ocean Infinity initiative underscores how Seabed 2030 aims to crowdsource data by leveraging assets already at sea from sources such as surveying company ships, transport vessels, and cruise liners to contribute to a global bathymetric map.
