Why mapping the entire seafloor is a daunting task, but key to improving human life

Short Wave

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4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 18 August 2025

⏱️ 14 minutes

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Summary

Scientists have mapped less than 30% of the world's seafloor. Experts say that getting that number up to 100% would improve everything from tsunami warnings to the Internet and renewable energy. That's why there's currently a global effort to create a full, detailed map of the seabed by 2030. On today's Sea Camp episode, we talk to Dawn Wright, a marine geographer and chief scientist at the Environmental Systems Research Institute (Esri) about this effort.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This message comes from TED Talks Daily, a podcast from TED.
0:04.0	Ted Talks Daily brings you an inspiring idea every day.
0:07.9	Learn about the ideas shaping humanity from the science behind the autism spectrum to the existence of aliens.
0:14.8	Listen to TED Talks Daily.
0:17.3	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:23.5	Hey, shortwavers, Emily Kwong here and Regina Barber back with our next installment of our summer sea camp series.
0:30.2	I love this series. It's been so fun. It has been. Where are we going today?
0:35.2	Rock bottom, Emily. rock bottom. Oh.
0:39.9	We're in the Hidal zone.
0:44.2	The deepest zone that we are aware of.
0:50.8	People also refer to it is the trenches, and there aren't a lot of these places in the oceans.
0:52.3	That's Noel Boland.
0:55.4	She's our go-to marine biologist from the National Oceanic and atmospheric administration. And she says the Hidal Zone is any area 6,000 meters below sea level and deeper.
1:02.2	How deep does it go? Yeah, the depths of the trenches can vary, but the deepest one, the Mariana
1:07.6	trench, is almost 11,000 meters or nearly seven miles deep. That's very far. I've heard of the Mariana Trench is almost 11,000 meters or nearly seven miles deep.
1:12.6	That's very far. I've heard of the Mariana Trench, but now that I imagine my seven
1:17.0	mile run downwards, that's quite deep. Yeah, I do not think I've ever run that far, but I want to.
1:23.8	It makes sense that this is a really tough place to study, let alone get humans down there.
1:29.5	But we're going down there today?
1:31.4	Yes, by hearing from Don Wright, one of less than 30 people who visited the deepest point in the Mariana Trench, a place known as Challenger Deep.
1:40.2	Let's go.
1:43.9	Descending in a submersible is not unlike being in a space capsule in many ways.
	...

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