An interesting video showing what is beneath the oceans has been recreated from a 2008 NASA animation. The current video adds more details to the geology of the ocean floor.
Scientists have remade a 2008 NASA video showing what is hidden beneath the oceans. The animations drain these oceans exposing the longest mountain range and ancient bridges that humans crossed to reach other continents.
James O’Donoghue showcased what the world would look like if we were to take out all the water in the oceans. The animation reveals what is hidden, if we were to drain all the water in the oceans, exposing three-fifths of the earth surface.
Working on the animation of beneath the ocean
O’Donoghue works at the Japanese space agency (JAXA) took the NASA 2008 video, re-edited it, adding more details in it. The researcher who has also worked at NASA, also added timing and a tracker to show how much water drains throughout the animation.
The first bits of the hidden surface to appear after draining the water are the continental shelves, which are the undersea edges of each continent.
These shelves included some of the bridges believed to have been by an ancient civilization to cross from one continent to another. Tens of thousands of years ago, it would have been possible to cross from continental Europe to the UK or from Alaska to Siberia. This, however, is no longer the case.
Researchers explained the existence of these bridges were formed during the ice age, tens of thousands of years ago. During this period, a lot of water was held as ice and mostly in the poles. This left a landmass that humans could use to cross from one continent to another.
As the earth started heating up, these bridges were covered by water. They have existed for ages, and scientists continue to discover them regularly. O’Donoghue said,
When the last ice age occurred, a lot of ocean water was locked up as ice at the poles of the planet. That’s why land bridges used to exist, Each of these links enabled humans to migrate, and when the ice age ended, the water sort of sealed them in.
This project highlighted the smallest details that we would expect to find beneath the ocean with details. The researchers described the ocean floor as just as variable and interesting in its geology as the continents.
Featured image by Pixabay
