Possible Targets for Ultra-High Resolution Sea-Floor Mapping in Great Depth: A Proposal

Abstract

 Even in the digital era of the mid-2020s, bathymetry using actual soundings has left areas largely unmapped, especially in open waters. Recent advances in Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) could change this situation, especially in the case of vehicles capable of operating down to a water depth of 8000 m. Among the various potential targets for bathymetric surveys with AUVs, fracture zone walls, intra-plate volcanism, internal structures of leaky fracture zones, slopes of trenches, and ocean floor crater chronology are regarded to be especially valuable survey targets for ultra-high resolution morphological studies.