Earth's final frontier: the global race to map the entire ocean floor

An ambitious project to chart the seabed by 2030 could help countries prepare for tsunamis, protect marine habitats and monitor deep-sea mining. But the challenge is unprecedentedOn a wall facing Vicki Ferrini’s desk hangs a giant map of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. At 6ft by 8ft, it’s the largest size available on the printer at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, where she works as a geoinformatics researcher. “I of course want it even bigger,” she says.The map is