Abstract:
<ns7:p>We produced a new terrain map of the oceans from the best available resolution global bathymetry using a Geographical Information System. From this map, we calculated the following statistics for each sea and ocean, and each country’s Exclusive Economic Zone2: sea surface and seabed area, volume, mean, maximum and standard deviation of depth and slope. We found a total sea surface area of 353 million km2, seabed area of 354 million km2, and volume of 1 trillion litres or 1.3 billion km3. The deepest depth was 10,898 m in Micronesia, North Pacific Ocean. We found that the ocean was very flat; 71% of seabed had a slope of < 1o. We predicted locations of 56,741 seamounts (> 1,000 m high) with 74% within 30-min distance of known seamounts. We also identified over 1 million circular seabed features that may be seamounts or sea-hills.</ns7:p>