Satellites detect 'thousands' of new ocean-bottom mountains

Ocean floor The new gravity data gives us our clearest view yet of the shape of the ocean floor It is not every day you can announce the discovery of thousands of new mountains on Earth, but that is what a US-European research team has done. What is more, these peaks are all at least 1.5km high. The reason they have gone unrecognised until now is because they are at the bottom of the ocean. Dave Sandwell and colleagues used radar satellites to discern the mountains' presence under water and report their findings in Science Magazine. Sonar gondola Using ship-borne echosounders is expensive and time-consuming "In the previous radar dataset we could see everything taller than 2km, and there were 5,000 seamounts," Prof Sandwell told BBC News. "With our new dataset - and we haven't fully done the work yet - I'm guessing we can see things that are 1.5km tall. "That might not sound like a huge improvement but the number of seamounts goes up exponentially with decreasing size. "So, we may be able to detect another 25,000 on top of the 5,000 already known," the Scripps Institution of Oceanography researcher explained. Jump media player Media player help Out of media player. Press enter to return or tab to continue. Dietmar Müller: We know much more about the topography of Mars than we know about the seafloor Knowing where the seamounts are is important for fisheries management and conservation, because it is around these topographic highs that wildlife tends to congregate. The roughness of the seafloor is important also as it steers currents and promotes mixing - behaviours that are critical to understanding how the oceans transport heat and influence the climate. But our knowledge of the seafloor is poor; witness the problems they have had searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines jet MH370, which is believed to have crashed west of Australia.-READ MORE-http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29465446