The "Factorian Deep," the new deepest point in Antarctica's the Southern Ocean, was first mapped

 

The "Factorian Deep" is located at a depth of more than 24,000 feet below water that is below freezing.

 

The "Factorian Deep," approximately 24,400 feet (7,437 meters) below the surface of the water, was included in the most detailed map of Antarctica's icy the Southern Ocean to date researchers produced. This map also included the ocean's new deepest point.

 

The Factorian Deep, discovered in 2019 by the American explorer and entrepreneur Victor Vescovo as part of his Five Deeps Expedition to map the deepest points of the world's five seas, is located at a depth comparable to around 17 Empire State Buildings stacked top to bottom. Vescovo personally piloted a submersible called "Limiting Factor" (for which the Factorian Deep was named) to the bottom of the South Sandwich Trench, which is an undersea canyon that spans approximately 600 miles (965 kilometers) of the seafloor between South America and Antarctica. The discovery of the South Sandwich Trench was the impetus for the name of the Factorian Deep.

 

The trench passes through an unseen circle of latitude that is 60 degrees south of the equator and divides the Atlantic and Southern oceans. This circle is known as the 60th parallel south. The South Sandwich Trench was explored in its entirety for the very first time by the Vescovo expedition, which led to the discovery of a new deepest point in the Southern Ocean. This new deepest point was found close to the 60th parallel.

 

And now, the Factorian Deep has been mapped out on an underwater topographic chart for the first time. In a recent study that was released on June 7 in the journal Scientific Data (opens in a new tab), a group of researchers from all around the world included the Factoria Deep in an expansive new map of the undersea mountains, canyons, and plateaus that are found in the Southern Ocean.

 

Both the International Bathymetric Chart of the Southern Ocean (IBCSO), which began mapping the Southern Ocean in 2013, and the Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project, which aims to map the entire global seafloor by the year 2030, collaborated to create the massive map. The IBCSO began mapping the Southern Ocean in 2013.

 

The new map was created using information from more than 1,200 separate sonar data sets, the majority of which were gathered by research vessels from all over the world and the ice-breaking vessels that paved the way for them, according to the researchers who prepared the report. The sea bottom chart depicts more than 18.5 million square miles (48 million square kilometers) of the seabed. This more than doubles the amount of seafloor depicted on IBCSO's initial region map, published in 2013.

 

Despite how extensive that coverage sounds, there is still a lot of work to be done to finish the project. According to the BBC, even if you were to divide the chart's 18.5 million square miles into a grid of squares roughly 5,382 square feet (500 square meters) each, only 23 percent of those squares would have at least one modern depth measurement. This is based on the fact that the chart is divided into a grid of squares.

 

In light of this fact, the IBCSO is urging all ships that navigate the Southern Ocean to activate their sonars and contribute data to the project.

 

IBCSO experts told the BBC that it is crucial to visualize the nooks and crannies and the shapes of the Southern Ocean for various reasons. The maps will be helpful for biological research in addition to being beneficial for navigation since they will pinpoint the sites of undersea mountains, also known as seamounts, which are often areas with a high concentration of undersea biodiversity. Ocean depth also influences current movement and vertical water mixing, which are factors considered by climate models when demonstrating how oceans distribute heat around the Earth.

Articl sourcee :  https://www.livescience.com/antarctica-southern-ocean-factorian-deep

Image surce    :  https://pixabay.com/id/photos/gletser-laut-air-alam-gunung-es-7187291/

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