Forty years after the ocean floor was first mapped by hand, a team of Australian researchers has created the first digital map of the entire sea floor. Made by the University of Sydney's School of Geosciences and National ICT Australia (NICTA), the map can be used to plot the planet's underwater carbon sinks and understand how oceans respond to climate change.

Sea Floor Map/ 1976: Distribution of carbonate in surface sediments of the Pacific Ocean

Sea Floor Map/ 2015: Census of seafloor sediments in the world’s ocean