The Hidden Landscape Beneath the Sea

The science

Bathymetry is the measurement of ocean depth – the underwater equivalent of a topographic map. The dataset behind this print, known as SRTM30_PLUS, was assembled by researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography together with NOAA and the U.S. Naval Oceanographic Office. It combines two very different sources: satellite gravity measurements, which detect how the seafloor's mass subtly bends the ocean surface, calibrated against 298 million individual depth soundings collected by ships over decades.

The seafloor is as varied as any mountain range on land – mid-ocean ridges, deep trenches, abyssal plains – but it is almost never shown. Most world maps leave the ocean a flat, featureless blue.

How we turned it into a print

We rendered depth as color, from shallow shelves to the deepest basins, and left everything above sea level blank – land simply isn't part of a bathymetric map. Then, out of affection for the region, we placed the Arctic at the very center of the composition, a perspective you almost never see on a wall. The ocean does all the talking.

The print

From our Spectrum collection, The World as Bathymetry is our one vertically oriented map, printed on premium paper in 50x70 cm and 70x100 cm. Data source: Becker et al., Global Bathymetry and Elevation Data at 30 Arc Seconds Resolution (SRTM30_PLUS), Marine Geodesy.