Scientists have discovered thousands of seafloor mountains in an effort to learn more about the world's oceans and the mysteries held in their depths.
According to BBC News, researchers from the U.S. and Europe used radar satellites to detect these previously undetected mountains. Some of them even come close to standing a mile high, but would have never been found unless someone went and looked for them.
The researchers' study is published in the journal Science.
"In the previous radar dataset we could see everything taller than 2km, and there were 5,000 seamounts," study lead author David Sandwell, a professor of geophysics at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, told BBC News. "With our new dataset - and we haven't fully done the work yet - I'm guessing we can see things that are 1.5km tall.
"That might not sound like a huge improvement but the number of seamounts goes up exponentially with decreasing size," he said. "So, we may be able to detect another 25,000 on top of the 5,000 already known."
Another researcher on the study and a geophysicist at the University of Sydney, Dietmar Müller told Reuters there is a lot to be discovered about the ocean floor. He said 71 percent of the Earth is covered in water and we may know as little as one-tenth of what lies beneath.
"We know much more about the topography of Mars than we know about Earth's seafloor," Müller said. "The disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 earlier this year has heightened global awareness of the poor knowledge of our ocean depths.
"Knowing where and when such ridges existed is essential for deciphering planet Earth's geological past."
The researchers plan to use the European Space Agency's (ESA) Cryosat satellite to continue refining the accuracy of their model.
"The miniaturization of computer chips and the increase in CPU processing speed and data storage in the last 13 years has made it easy and cheap to do amazing things with radar," study co-author Walter Smith, a researcher with the NOAA, told BBC News. "There is still a lot we could do with a dedicated mission. It could be done - everything, 'soup to nuts' - for 100 million Euros (£80m), and the necessary technological innovations are well known to radar engineers in England, France and elsewhere. It is just a question of political will to find the budget."
