Welcome to the Global Deep Sea Exploration Goals interactive map. This tool allows you to explore all 10,000 target seafloor observation locations identified by Ocean Discovery League's probability-based sampling design. You can view individual point details, filter by geomorphological layers, overlay marine jurisdictions, and track the status of visual exploration across the global deep seafloor.

Use this help guide to assist with map navigation, understand what each menu and data layer contains, and get the most from each point's location details.

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Menu: Navigating the Map  |  Layers |  Points  |  Data  |  Location Details |  Additional Resources

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Navigating the Map

 

The interactive map displays a three-dimensional globe that you can rotate, pan, tilt, and zoom all the way to the seafloor. Navigation controls differ depending on whether you are using a mouse or a touchpad-enabled device. You can also access the full navigation controls panel at any time by clicking the gear icon in the top-right corner of the screen. While the map is accessible on a mobile device, the current version is optimized for laptop or desktop access. 

 

Mouse Controls

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• Pan: Left click and hold, then drag to rotate and move the globe in any direction.

• Zoom: Use your mouse scroll wheel, or scroll with two fingers on a trackpad, to zoom in and out.

• Rotate: Right-click and hold, then drag to rotate the globe around its axis.

 

Trackpad Controls

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• Zoom: Scroll with two fingers on a trackpad to zoom in and out.

• Tilt: Two-finger click and hold, and then drag up or down.

• Pan: Left click, one-finger hold, then drag fingers on the trackpad to rotate and move the globe in any direction.

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Tip: On a Mac trackpad, if right-click dragging feels awkward, try holding down the Shift key while clicking and dragging to tilt. Two-finger scrolling will zoom in and out. For more on Mac trackpad gestures, see Apple's official guide at support.apple.com/en-us/102482.

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Tip: On Windows, two-finger scrolling zooms in and out on most precision touchpads. To pan, left-click and drag with one finger. If rotation via right-click drag is not working reliably on your touchpad, a standard mouse with a scroll wheel will give you the most consistent control. You can verify and adjust your touchpad gesture settings at Settings > Bluetooth & Devices > Touchpad.

 

Touch Screen Controls

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• Pan: One finger click and drag to move the globe in any direction.

• Zoom: Place two fingers on the screen and pinch them together to zoom out, or spread them apart to zoom in.

• Tilt: Place two fingers on the screen and drag them in the same direction to tilt the viewing angle up or down.

• Rotate: Place two fingers on the screen and drag them in opposite directions, as if turning a dial, to rotate the globe.

 

Tip: If pinch-to-zoom or two-finger gestures are not responding as expected on a tablet or touch device, check that no external keyboard or pointing device is interfering with touch input, and ensure your browser is up to date.

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If you're having issues navigating the map on your computer, see the Additional Resources section for online navigation guides for different operating systems. 

 

Home Button

The Home button, shown as a house icon in the top-right corner of the screen, resets the map to the default zoomed-out global view at any time. Use it whenever you want to return to a full-globe perspective after zooming into a specific region. ​

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Left-Hand Menu

The left side of the screen contains three menu tabs: Layers, Points, and Data. Click any tab icon to open its panel. Click the arrow icon at the top right of the open panel, or click elsewhere on the map, to close it.

 

Layers

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The Layers menu allows you to toggle geographic and environmental data overlays on and off. Each layer can be enabled or disabled independently using the toggle icon next to its name.

 

Caution: Turning on multiple geomorphological layers in quick succession without allowing each one time to fully load can cause the map to stall. Enable one layer at a time and wait for it to fully render before adding another. If the map crashes, close the browser tab and reload the interactive.

 

Exploration Goal Points

The 10,000 target locations identified by the Global Deep Sea Exploration Goals sampling algorithm. Each point represents a specific seafloor location selected to ensure a statistically representative, globally distributed visual dataset of the deep sea.

 

5 km Buffer Zones

Each Global Deep Sea Exploration Goal Point is surrounded by a 5 km buffer zone. An observation qualifies as a completed goal when imagery is collected anywhere within this buffer, expanding the practical accessibility of each target for a wide range of vessels and operational conditions.

 

Previous Dive Activity

A heatmap displaying the locations of previously documented deep-sea dives with visual observations. Brighter areas indicate higher historical dive density. This layer illustrates the geographic concentration of past exploration against which the Global Deep Sea Exploration Goals were selected to avoid repeating.

 

EEZ with UN Codes

Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) are 200-nautical-mile areas of the ocean where a coastal nation has jurisdiction over natural resources. This layer, derived from the latest version on marineregions.org, displays EEZ boundaries labeled with their corresponding UN country codes.

 

Bathymetry

Seafloor bathymetry refers to the measurement of ocean depth. This layer displays depth estimates across the global seafloor, aggregated into 1,000-meter depth bands, sourced from the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO).

 

Geomorphological Feature Layers

The following layers represent the distinct physical features of the deep seafloor, drawn from global geomorphology data. Each layer can be toggled independently. Feature definitions are adapted from Harris et al. (2014).¹

 

• Abyssal Hills and Mountains: Abyssal hills have between 300 and 1,000 meters of local relief; abyssal mountains exceed 1,000 meters within approximately 25 kilometers. Both are found in the deep abyssal zone and are among the most undersampled environments in historical deep-sea exploration.

• Abyssal Plains: Broad, flat areas of the deep ocean floor with less than 300 meters of local relief. Abyssal plains occupy approximately 48% of the global deep seafloor and are among the most underexplored environments on Earth.

• Hadal Areas: The deepest ocean zones, at depths greater than 6,000 meters, including ocean trenches.

• Seamounts: Isolated peaks or groups of peaks rising more than 1,000 meters above the surrounding seafloor, typically conical in shape and of volcanic origin.

• Guyots: Flat-topped seamounts, also called tablemounts. Like seamounts, they rise significantly above the seafloor but have comparatively smooth, level summits.

• Ridges: Elongated, narrow elevations with steep sides and more than 1,000 meters of relief, often separating basin features. Spreading ridges are mid-ocean mountain systems where new seafloor is created.

• Plateaus: Flat or nearly flat elevated areas of considerable extent, dropping off steeply on one or more sides.

• Canyons: Steep-walled, sinuous valleys with V-shaped cross sections, often cutting through the continental slope.

• Slopes: The deepening seafloor transitioning from the edge of the continental shelf down to the continental rise.

• Escarpments: Elongated, steep slopes separating otherwise flat or gently sloping areas of the seafloor.

• Shelf Areas: The relatively shallow zone adjacent to continents or islands, before the seafloor deepens into the slope.

• Trenches: Long, narrow, very deep depressions with steep, asymmetrical sides and a characteristic V-shaped cross section.

• Troughs: Long depressions with flat bottoms and steep sides, generally shallower than trenches. Troughs may form through glacial erosion or tectonic processes and are often open at one end.

• Rises: Areas of sediment accumulation abutting continental margins, characterized by a smooth, gently sloping seabed.

• Fans: Smooth, fan-shaped depositional features sloping away from the base of a canyon or canyon system, located at the outer edge of the continental slope.

• Sills: Shallow seafloor barriers that restrict water movement between basins.

• Bridges: Blocks of material that partially span across a trench, forming a bridge-like structure.

• Terraces: Relatively flat, gently inclined surfaces bounded by a steeper ascending slope on one side and a steeper descending slope on the other.

• Valleys: Elongated depressions of varying origin found across the seafloor, including rift valleys confined to the axes of mid-ocean spreading ridges.

• Terrain: A general classification layer capturing broad seafloor terrain types, including plains, hills, mountains, basins, and zonal designations such as shelf, slope, abyss, and hadal, in areas where more specific feature classifications are not present.

 

Points

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The Points menu allows you to filter which exploration goal targets are displayed on the map.

 

• All Points: Displays all 10,000 Global Deep Sea Exploration Goal target locations identified by the sampling algorithm.

• High Seas Points: Displays only target points that fall outside the Exclusive Economic Zone of any country or territory, in areas of the ocean beyond national jurisdiction.

 

Data

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The Data menu provides access to the underlying datasets visualized on the map.

 

• Exploration Goal Points: The full set of 10,000 target locations identified by the Global Deep Sea Exploration Goals algorithm.

• Previously Visualized Locations (Heatmap): A heatmap of all previously documented deep-sea dives with visual observations, illustrating the historical concentration of exploration activity.

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Location Details

 

Clicking on any Exploration Goal Point on the map opens the Location Details panel, which provides scientific context for that specific target. Click the X in the top right of the panel to close it.

 

Point Information

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• Name: A unique identifier for the point, including the ocean basin, country EEZ or High Seas label, and point ID number.

• Coordinates: The latitude and longitude of the target point in decimal degrees.

• Country EEZ: Identifies whether the point falls within a national Exclusive Economic Zone or in the High Seas, beyond national jurisdiction.

• Ocean Basin: The major ocean basin in which the point is located.

• Point Depth: The depth of the defined Exploration Goal Point at its exact location, without the 5 km buffer.

• Point Depth Zone: The range of depths present within the 5 km buffer zone surrounding the target point.

 

Why We Chose This Point

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This field explains the scientific rationale for selecting this specific location. Targets are chosen using a data-driven method drawing on four global seafloor characteristics: previous observation status, geomorphology, seafloor composition, and particulate organic carbon (POC) flux. The entry also indicates what percentage of the global deep ocean shares this same combination of characteristics, giving a sense of how representative or rare the environment is.

 

• Seafloor Bathymetry: The measurement of depth across the ocean floor. Depth data were grouped into 1,000-meter bands to ensure the sampling design captures the full range of depth zones found in the deep sea.

• Seafloor Geomorphology: The physical shape and structure of the seafloor, including features such as seamounts, ridges, canyons, and abyssal plains. Geomorphology influences ecological diversity and geological processes, making it a key variable in representative sampling.

• Seafloor Composition: The material makeup of the seafloor surface, including sediment types and geological features. 

• POC Flux to Seafloor: Particulate organic carbon (POC) flux is the rate at which organic material sinks from the surface ocean to the seafloor and is used here as a proxy for seafloor productivity and nutrient availability.

 

Seafloor Composition Variables

 

Much of the deep seafloor's composition remains not confidently classified, reflecting the limited sampling that has occurred across most of the ocean. Where data exists, composition categories are adapted from Dutkiewicz et al. (2015).²

 

• Radiolarian Ooze: A sediment type composed primarily of the silica-based shells of radiolarians, microscopic marine organisms. Common in tropical and subtropical deep-sea environments.

• Diatom Ooze: Sediment dominated by the silica shells of diatoms, a type of algae. Typically found in high-productivity, cold-water regions of the ocean.

• Lithogenous Sediment: Sediment derived from the weathering and erosion of continental rocks, transported to the seafloor by wind, rivers, or ocean currents.

• Clay: Fine-grained, slow-accumulating sediment that covers large areas of the deep abyssal seafloor, particularly in regions far from continental margins.

• Calcareous Sediment: Sediment composed primarily of calcium carbonate, derived from the shells and skeletons of marine organisms such as foraminifera and coccolithophores.

• Crust: Areas of known ferromanganese crust, hard mineral deposits that form on exposed rock surfaces in the deep sea.

• Spreading Ridge: Areas associated with mid-ocean ridges where tectonic plates are separating and new seafloor is being created through volcanic activity.

• Seep: Areas where fluids such as methane or hydrogen sulfide seep from the seafloor, supporting unique chemosynthetic biological communities.

• Not Confidently Classified: Areas where available data are insufficient to assign a seafloor composition type with confidence. This category covers a substantial portion of the deep seafloor, underscoring how much remains unknown.

 

Exploration Status

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The Exploration Status section indicates the current state of knowledge for each target location.

 

• Visually Explored: Indicates whether this point or its 5 km buffer zone has been observed with visual imagery during a deep-sea dive or deployment.

• Mapped: Indicates whether this point or its buffer zone has been mapped using high-resolution multibeam bathymetry.

• Challenger 150 Point: Indicates whether this point is also part of the Challenger 150 program, a global initiative supporting the goals of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. Learn more at challenger150.world.

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Additional Resources

 

If you are new to navigating three-dimensional globe interfaces, the following resources may help you get comfortable with mouse and trackpad controls on your device.

 

Mac

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• Mac Trackpad Gestures (Apple Support): Apple's official guide to Multi-Touch gestures, including two-finger scrolling, pinch-to-zoom, and rotation. support.apple.com/en-us/102482

• Zoom, Move, Rotate, or Tilt a Map (Apple Maps Help): Apple's guide to navigating 3D maps on Mac with trackpad-specific tips. support.apple.com/guide/maps/mps1eccd51e8/mac

 

Windows

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• Touchpad Gestures for Windows 11 (Microsoft): Microsoft's official overview of touchpad gestures in Windows 11, including how to enable and customize pinch-to-zoom, two-finger scroll, and multi-finger swipes. microsoft.com/en-us/windows/learning-center/touchpad-gestures

• Touch Gestures for Windows (Microsoft Support): Microsoft's guide covering touch and touchpad gestures across Windows devices, including panning, zooming, and rotating. support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/touch-gestures-for-windows-a9d28305-4818-a5df-4e2b-e5590f850741

• Windows Touchpad Gestures Guide (MakeUseOf): A practical walkthrough of Windows touchpad gestures, including two-finger scroll, pinch-to-zoom, and rotate. makeuseof.com/windows-11-touchpad-gesture-guide

 

General 3D Globe Navigation

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• Navigating Google Earth (Google Support): A thorough overview of mouse, trackpad, and keyboard controls for 3D globe navigation that translates well to other globe-based tools. support.google.com/earth/answer/148186

• ArcGIS Earth Navigation Controls (Esri): Detailed breakdown of mouse and touch navigation for 3D globe interfaces, including tilt and rotate controls. doc.arcgis.com/en/arcgis-earth/get-started/navigation-controls.htm

 

If you encounter persistent issues navigating the interactive or encounter any other errors, please contact us at explore@oceandiscoveryleague.org.​​

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Sources & Citations

¹ Geomorphology definitions  Harris, P.T., Macmillan-Lawler, M., Rupp, J., and Baker, E.K. (2014). Geomorphology of the oceans. Marine Geology, 352, 4–24. doi:10.1016/j.margeo.2014.01.011. Available at: sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0025322714000310

 

² Seafloor composition definitions  Dutkiewicz, A., Müller, R.D., O'Callaghan, S., and Jónasson, H. (2015). Census of seafloor sediments in the world's ocean. Geology, 43(9), 795–798. doi:10.1130/G36883.1. Available at: pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article/43/9/795/131939