GEBCO map of the world's oceans

By some accounts only 1% of the world's oceans have been mapped.

However, a deep-sea mapping program, the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO), seeks to increase this percentage by training more ocean experts to expand this highly important work, focussing in particular on representatives of developing countries.

GEBCO, a 100-year old project which plots the ocean floor's contours, has been funded by the Nippon Foundation to train a new generation of scientists and hydrographers in ocean bathymetry. Now in its fifth year of funding, the twelve-month course, leading to a Postgraduate Certificate in Ocean Bathymetry (PCOB), is held at the University of New Hampshire in the United States.

The Nippon Foundation has contributed $1 million to GEBCO's education project. Carefully selected international experts gather each year for this training at the University of New Hampshire's Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping. This year's training scholarships went to ocean experts from Portugal, Japan, Sri Lanka, South Africa, and Bangladesh.

Candidates, oceanography experts in their own countries, compete for a place in the GEBCO program with scores of other applicants from around the world. They learn advanced skills which will have an impact on the future of our global society. Not only will these selected candidates contribute much needed knowledge about their own countries' surrounding ocean floors, but the cutting-edge ocean surveying techniques they learn could lead to the discovery of billions of dollars in natural resources.

The GEBCO project also has a number of other priorities, such as helping scientists predict deep ocean circulation, the assessment of fishery conditions, understanding the source of tsunamis, measuring ocean pollution, and deciding on the ocean bed boundaries between different nations. Recent GEBCO work has uncovered natural resources such as fossil fuels and minerals, identified previously unknown species of sea life, and has contributed to the development of new pharmaceuticals based on ocean bed discoveries.

GEBCO has formal links to the scientific and hydrographic communities through the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO and the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO). GEBCO, which celebrated its centenary in 2003, took its present form in 1973. It produces bathymetric charts and digital grids of the world's oceans by collating, interpreting and contouring, with the aid of directional fabrics revealed by satellite gravity, single and multibeam soundings collected by surface ships, submarines and other underwater vehicles.

GEBCO charts are routinely used as base maps in everyday planning on a regional scale and, often on a global scale, as wall charts wherever marine scientists gather to discuss their work.