Unmapped areas of the ocean floor

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There is more information about the surface of Mars than there is about the Earth’s seafloor. Only 20% of the ocean floor has so far been mapped in detail.

Most of what we know about the world ocean floor’s topographies was obtained from satellites’ gravity data. That’s why nowadays, seafloor topography maps have the resulting spatial resolution is about 2 sq mi (5.2 sq km). By comparison, topographic maps of Mars and Venus have a spatial resolution that’s 50 times more precise.

Seabed 2030 is an international effort to crowdsource datasets to fully map the world’s oceans at an exact 100m resolution.

Japan is the world leader in seabed research.

Unmapped seafloor by territory (percentage of exclusive economic zone)

Japan – 2.3%
United Kingdom – 9.4%
Norway – 18.1%
New Zealand – 26.0%
United States – 30.1%
Australia – 35.1%
Hawaii – 47.5%
Iceland – 50.1%
South Africa – 60.5%
Canada – 61.2%
Samoa – 65.4%
South Korea – 71.7%
Taiwan – 73.7%
Argentina – 77.4%
Cook Islands – 81.0%
Phillipines – 83.3%
China – 88.6%
Madagascar – 94.5%
Bangladesh – 96.7%
Thailand – 98.5%