Thousands of previously unknown mountains and hills spotted in best-yet high resolution seafloor map. Really!

Amazing stuff! And by satellite! This is possibly a breakthrough in geology!

Can you believe it, at the end of the first quarter of the 21st century, we still discover thousands of mountains and hills on the seafloors of the oceans? Only 25% of the seafloor has been mapped by traditional means! I simply can't!

But we have climate models purporting to predict climate up to the year 2100!

"... Now, researchers have discovered more than 200,000 of these hills in the most detailed global map of the sea floor yet, created with radar data from the Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite. Developed by NASA and CNES, France’s national space agency, and launched 2 years ago, the $1.2 billion satellite measures ocean height within a few centimeters. By looking for the subtle way water piles up above seafloor features, tugged by their gravity, SWOT has revealed not just hills, but thousands of loftier seamounts and other features. The map could aid in studies of plate tectonics and ocean currents—and help submariners avoid hazards. ..."

"A satellite-mounted instrument has in just one year produced higher-resolution imagery of the global seafloor than that from comparable systems over the past 30 years.

At present, ship-mounted soundings have surveyed about 25% of the seafloor. For the other 75%, the only information comes, indirectly, from satellite altimeters that measure the detailed shape of the sea surface. This shape provides information about the variations in gravity from undersea topography, so altimeter data provide most of the seafloor topography shown in common map programs such as Google Earth. ..."

From the abstract of the perspective:

"Global marine gravity fields—variations in Earth’s gravitational pull across the ocean surface—provide valuable information about seafloor topography and plate tectonics beneath the water, knowledge that is essential for understanding geological features and ocean dynamics. A technique that estimates Earth’s surface heights from space, called satellite altimetry, has partially resolved marine gravity fields. However, conventional altimetry can only obtain one-dimensional measurements along a satellite track. The 2022 Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission marked a considerable advancement in satellite altimetry because it captures two-dimensional, large-area topography data with high precision. ... report that a gravity field derived from 1 year of SWOT data reveals plate tectonics along the deep ocean floor that had remained hidden for the past 30 years with conventional altimeter observations. This level of detail could improve understanding of ocean environment and dynamics."

From the editor's summary and abstract:

"Editor’s summary

Detailed maps of the ocean floor come from ship crossings but can also be obtained using satellite altimetry. Yu et al. used radar altimetry observations from just 1 year of the Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission to develop a high-resolution global seafloor map ... The new satellite observations have a resolution about twice that of the older observations, presenting an opportunity to better understand the geological features of the seafloor. ...

Abstract

The global ocean covers 71% of Earth’s surface, yet the seafloor is poorly charted compared with land, the Moon, Mars, and Venus. Traditional ocean mapping uses ship-based soundings and nadir satellite radar altimetry—one limited in spatial coverage and the other in spatial resolution. The joint NASA–CNES (Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales) Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) mission uses phase-coherent, wide-swath radar altimetry to measure ocean surface heights at high precision. We show that 1 year of SWOT data offers more detailed information than 30 years of satellite nadir altimetry in marine gravity, enabling the detection of intricate seafloor structures at 8-kilometer spatial resolution. With the mission still ongoing, SWOT promises critical insights for bathymetric charting, tectonic plate reconstruction, underwater navigation, and deep ocean mixing."

Thousands of previously unknown mountains and hills spotted in best-yet seafloor map | Science | AAAS "Data from SWOT satellite could stimulate studies of plate tectonics"

Transforming coastal mapping from space (no public access) "A recent altimeter mission resolves fine seafloor signatures and coastal geospatial information"

SWOT Sharpens Seafloor Focus "Revolutionary satellite program dramatically increases the resolution of ocean bathymetry"

Abyssal marine tectonics from the SWOT mission (no public access)

The parallel ridges of abyssal hills, as seen by the Surface Water and Ocean Topography satellite, extend out from the flanks of a seafloor spreading center (black lines) in the Indian Ocean.

Floors of three oceans seen by SWOT's satellite-mounted altimeters