Altimetric Bathymetry
Mars, Venus and Earth's Moon are better mapped than Earth. Seventy percent of Earth is under the oceans, and only a few percent of the seafloor has been mapped by ships. Gaps between ship's surveys are as large as 105 km2, or about the size of the state of New Jersey.
We use satellite radar altimeter measurements of the ocean surface height (sea level) to infer the presence of mountains below. Mountains on the sea floor add extra pull to Earth's gravity field, drawing more water around them and bulging the sea surface outward. The satellite data on sea level can be used to fill the gaps between ship surveys. Although the satellite data has low resolution, using it to fill the holes creates the best estimated depth maps of the world’s seafloor available. This bathymetric model has been widely used in the scientific community for more than a decade, and was recently incorporated into GEBCO products and the popular web application Google Earth.
Our group seeks to improve the bathymetric model.
