Global Data Distribution

dbSEABED holds data characterizing the seabed at about 5 million samplings, at 3 million geographic sites. It is clearly the largest integration of data on the global seafloor substrates. But the fractional coverage of the ocean floor is still less than needed, because of the vastness of the ocean. Efforts continue in the project to find and activate datasets to increase the fractional coverage. Progress is rapid. In 2 months (mid 2015) another 60,000 data sites have been added from Russian, Norwegian, Australian and other sources.

Presently, at 0.1dg cellwise resolution, the active data in dbSEABED characterize 29% of the seabed (1254305 cells of 4337130). The median distance from any position in the ocean to a site with data is ~54km. The greatest distance is 600km. It is often said that we know about only 5% of the ocean: 5% of the ocean area lies within ~6km of dbSEABED data. For more statistics see these SpatialStatistics plots.

Graphic: Worldwide distribution of the data, showing recent additions (Dated 2015; colours represent individual datasets)