From the National Science Foundation- Press Release 14-133
New map uncovers thousands of unseen seamounts on ocean floor
Mysteries of the deep come alive as satellite data bring new clues into focus; results offer foundation for new version of Google’s ocean maps
Gravity model of the N. Atlantic; red dots are earthquakes. Quakes are often related to seamounts.
October 2, 2014
Scientists have created a new map of the world’s seafloor, offering a more vivid picture of the structures that make up the deepest, least-explored parts of the ocean.
The feat was accomplished by accessing two untapped streams of satellite data.
Thousands of previously uncharted mountains rising from the seafloor, called seamounts, have emerged through the map, along with new clues about the formation of the continents.
Combined with existing data and improved remote sensing instruments, the map, described today in the journal Science, gives scientists new tools to investigate ocean spreading centers and little-studied remote ocean basins.
Earthquakes were also mapped. In addition, the researchers discovered that seamounts and earthquakes are often linked. Most seamounts were once active volcanoes, and so are usually found near tectonically active plate boundaries, mid-ocean ridges and subducting zones.
The new map is twice as accurate as the previous version produced nearly 20 years ago, say the researchers, who are affiliated with California’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) and other institutions.
“The team has developed and proved a powerful new tool for high-resolution exploration of regional seafloor structure and geophysical processes,” says Don Rice, program director in the National Science Foundation’s Division of Ocean Sciences, which funded the research.
“This capability will allow us to revisit unsolved questions and to pinpoint where to focus future exploratory work.”
Developed using a scientific model that captures gravity measurements of the ocean seafloor, the map extracts data from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) CryoSat-2 satellite.
CryoSat-2 primarily captures polar ice data but also operates continuously over the oceans. Data also came from Jason-1, NASA’s satellite that was redirected to map gravity fields during the last year of its 12-year mission.
“The kinds of things you can see very clearly are the abyssal hills, the most common landform on the planet,” says David Sandwell, lead author of the paper and a geophysicist at SIO.
The paper’s co-authors say that the map provides a window into the tectonics of the deep oceans.
The map also provides a foundation for the upcoming new version of Google’s ocean maps; it will fill large voids between shipboard depth profiles.
Previously unseen features include newly exposed continental connections across South America and Africa and new evidence for seafloor spreading ridges in the Gulf of Mexico. The ridges were active 150 million years ago and are now buried by mile-thick layers of sediment.
“One of the most important uses will be to improve the estimates of seafloor depth in the 80 percent of the oceans that remain uncharted or [where the sea floor] is buried beneath thick sediment,” the authors state.
Co-authors of the paper include R. Dietmar Muller of the University of Sydney, Walter Smith of the NOAA Laboratory for Satellite Altimetry Emmanuel Garcia of SIO and Richard Francis of ESA.
The study also was supported by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and ConocoPhillips.
-NSF-
Might be just a few bazillloon Btus with these as well.
This layman is wondering about the reduced magnetic level of the current ‘quiet period’ of our sun. It seems this has allowed the Earth’s magnetic field to relax and expand. This seems to be controlled by the liquid magma of the Earth. Surely this will result is increased movement of the magma with consequent increase in the level of global earthquake and volcanic activity?
Over 30 years ago, I have read a book about the influence of the sun on a lot of earth’s phenomenon, including earthquakes. It was said that there are more earthquakes at some parts of the sun cycle, but I have never seen a confirmation…
Sarcastically, The Earths magnetic field had the time to “relax and expand” during a solar maximum, which you call a “quiet period’ on our sun” which in fact is the most noisy period of the solar cycle. /end sarc Don’t call me Shirley! “Increased movement of Magma” makes you sound like a Supervillain. are you Dr evil Richard?
Just over 3 years ago I found strong correlation between the tectonic events in the N. Atlantic (along mid-Atlantic ridge) and the N. Atlantic SST (AMO) and more recently the sub-Arctic atmospheric pressure:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/EAS.gif
IF, and it is a big with capital letters ‘if’, the correlation holds then the PAUSE will soon turn to a downhill slalom.
Oh, forget it, let’s go back to CO2, TSI, UV, long cycles or whatever.
Interesting. I could probably connect air pressure and sea surface temperature.
IF there is some connection then the flow chart would have to be.
Tectonic-Sea -Air.
Is the tectonic graph based on number or intensity? Is the epicentre/activity on land or in the sea?
Is it just a coincidence?
Worth pursuing. Be prepared to put a large book in the back of your pants before presenting any findings.
Hi Alex
I would think that amount of heat pumped into oceans is probably insignificant, considering oceans thermal capacity. Air pressure and tectonics are concurrent in time and lead the SST by number of years. I expect that air pressure simply reacts mechanically to tectonic pulsations, it has some effect on the atmospheric circulation, while the tectonics main effect is possibly via sea floor ocean currents, taking some years to show up on the SST. In the above case I suspect the little known North Icelandic Jet.
re vukcevic: “I would think that amount of heat pumped into oceans is probably insignificant, considering oceans thermal capacity. ”
And yet the amount of heat absorbed by the oceans to account for the lack of warming is considered a serious thing, regardless of thermal capacity.
Where known unknowns collide.
Variables recorded from earth usually correlate very well with other measurements recorded from earth.
Just saying!
Ever since Robert Ballard found the first black smokers years ago, it has been known that, from a strictly uniformitarian standpoint, that they must exist along all 40,000 miles of the mid-ocean ridge system, quietly and invisibly pumping their wares into the ocean….along with a considerable amount of heat. The eruptions like those fissure eruptions on Iceland, are basically happening all along the MOR system. To overlook that fact (as the idea “newly found” would suggest) is pure folly…especially from the CO₂ emissions standpoint.
Here is a KNOWN process, based on and easily extrapolated FROM observation, completely eschewed by the model-crunching druids in climate-land. And it’s massive, like the plesiosaur in the closet.
I love a plesiosaur in a closet.
So much more elegant than an elephant in the room or a gorilla in the bathroom.
Mike Bromley –
There is an actual international commission that measures heat flux in the oceans.
To get some of an idea of the numbers, see my comment above — http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/02/one-wonders-how-many-of-these-newly-found-thousands-of-volcanic-seamounts-are-producing-co2-that-bubble-into-the-ocean/#comment-1754845
Also this one: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/02/one-wonders-how-many-of-these-newly-found-thousands-of-volcanic-seamounts-are-producing-co2-that-bubble-into-the-ocean/#comment-1754840
The warmest places (heat flux wise) are over and near mid-ocean ridges.
IMHO, it is not the overall heat flux that is important, but the regional high spots. Just as warm ocean water can magnify the intensity of hurricanes when the system passes over, it seems reasonable that high heat flux regions can cause weather to be affected, as well.
CryoSat-2 primarily captures polar ice data but also operates continuously over the oceans.
For the most recent ESA’s CryoSat gravity mapping link (as posted yesterday on the other thread)
http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Observing_the_Earth/GOCE/GOCE_reveals_gravity_dip_from_ice_loss
double click on animation.
Yep ! http://www.treasure-island-shipping.com and we know about 0.00001% of whats down there
I’m interested in the amount of ocean floor that is below the level at which water becomes the ‘universal solvent’.i.e. it will dissolve all minerals including gold. Is there such a contour? And if hydrothermal vents exist within this contour, then perhaps we could see places where mineral ore veins are forming in ‘real time’.
Universal solvent is a complex thing. Solubilities of solutions/ mixtures is really complicated. Don’t go there unless you’re conversant. Bacterial element formation is probably involved at the vents. If their was a contour like that it would already be exploited. Maybe there is a ‘contour’, but costs would be prohibitive. Not saying it’s impossible. Current technology allows for fusion energy but unfortunately we need to put more energy into the process than we get out of it. It’s the same with many things.
A thousand years ago I was discussing a problem about manganese ‘spotting’ housewives sheets. Apparently there is a bacteria that lives off the energy difference of multivalent manganese. These little f@ckers lived off the electron energy of valency change from 3 to 2 in manganese. That was an incredible shock to my system.’ Inconceivable’ , I thought. My choice was killing myself or continuing in this life.
.
I killed myself. I decided it was preferable to kill myself than to change my thinking
We know 1% but we act like we know 99%
But as Will Rogers said, “It isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that ain’t so.”
That saying probably predates Will Rogers, it has been attributed also to Mark Twain, Josh Billings, Eldon ‘Kin’ Hubbard, and probably others.
I first saw it in a book of quotes, attributed to Hubbard, and rendered as:
While the saying correctly identifies false knowledge as a bad thing, it seriously “misunderestimates” the evil of ignorance.
-☺-
s/b Frank McKinney Hubbard, not Eldon
The radiative forcing watts (Btu/h w/ English hours) of GHGs & CO2 is over “estimated” and the heat flux watts (KJ/h w/ metric hours) of the ocean floor volcanism is under “estimated”, are within a decimal point of each other and amount to a small fraction of the global heat balance.
I thought the following was intuitively obvious.
http://www.writerbeat.com/articles/3713-CO2-Feedback-Loop
@LogosWrench – “Volcanoes do understand politics. Like politicians, they are sedentary, immovable and emit hot gas. Although I prefer the volcano as it sees no need to pick my pocket.” And if volcanoes get too much power they usually cause enormous destruction, laying waste to gigantic areas of land and ultimately cause widespread mayhem and death.
The safest politicians are always found at the bottom of the ocean depths.
Next article: “It’s worse than we thought! Since the Earth is producing so much CO2, we need to cut our CO2 manufacturing COMPLETELY”
” Most seamounts were once active volcanoes, and so are usually found near tectonically active plate boundaries, mid-ocean ridges and subducting zones.” And how many of these and other unknown hot spots might be active and contributing heat to the oceans? Geothermal heat, that other heat source of our planet. How little we know with 70% of the Earth under water.
I too have written about the earth “degassing” to an extent that makes anthropogenic CO2 insignificant, maybe NASA’s OCO-2 will prove that to be true. But then that would violate their “agreement” with IPCC.
But the science is settled, we know with certainty all we need to know says president Obama et al.
We need to re-distribute wealth is their solution with certainty.
If global warming was responsible for volcanoes, the distribution of volcanoes would be in latitudinal bands, random, with numbers diminishing in successive latitudinal bands going towards the poles. Rather they are clustered along major tectonic plate boundaries and other deep fractures, as we always new them to be. If a geologist was asked in an examination question to trace on a globe or map where he thought volcanoes would be abundant, he would have produced something roughly like what is depicted. A major thing wrong with the thesis of global warming causing volcanism is that global warming has not affected the deep sea basins where most of these lie. This is another straw being clutched by those who are stressed by the 18yr flatlining of global temperatures. Surely the recent volcanism detected UNDER THE ICE of West Antarctica has not been caused by global warming!
http://www.livescience.com/41262-west-antarctica-new-volcano-discovered.html
Remember the global warming causing ice loss in W. Antarctica? Yeah, but it turns out the actual globe is causing the warming.
Thanks, Anthony. Very interesting article, with a very interesting side-trip to floating liquid CO2 bubbles. Thanks, guys!
Bursts of tectonic activity in the equatorial Pacific appear to precede the ENSO oscillations
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/ENSOetc.gif
Cause or just plain coincidence?
Is it possible the correlation is linked to seasonal orbital stresses? the weakest area of earths crust is on the ocean floor, the seasonal orbital and lunar stresses would be expected to manifest themselves as tectonic activity in those areas, the Multi-Variant Enso maybe a separate seasonal indicator, yet they can still correlate due to earths 47 degree axial tilt over the course of the year.
Hi
You may find this comment of some interest
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/10/03/the-201415-el-nino-part-16-is-there-still-hope-for-a-moderate-el-nino/#comment-1754543
What is the name on the comment? Sorry, I’m not sure I understand.
I’ve just noticed your comment
“vukcevic October 4, 2014 at 11:20 am”
Is this the one? for some reason WP is linking to an irrelevant comment further up the thread for me.
Anyway.. it’s very interesting. My advice to you is to be very cautious, speak your mind of course, but stand back and take a good look at your Idea from time to time and don’t be afraid to explore the faults and criticism that will eventually show up.
Thank you, Vuckevic, for that. But I have to ask what locations for the tectonic events?
I’ve seen (and I think commented on WUWT) some such evidence, though right now I can’t find my link to it.
I think the tectonic events are often connected with magma movements, and in that way are also connected to heat flux at the mid-ocean ridges – which, of course, do release more heat when magma is extruded.
It is not only CO2 that bubbles up, there is also a fair amount of SO2. The Iclandic eruption is estimated to emit 32.000t of SO2 every day and release a heat of more than 100GW. The lava now covers ~50square km, and it flows with 200m3/s. Just to put it in perspective.
Really? that much? maybe that’s what causes “anthropogenic climate bollix”