Big Data Knowledge Discovery

The recently-published ocean sediment map made by Dr Adriana Dutkiewicz and colleagues has taken the world’s media by storm. It’s been reported online and in press, from Australia to Cuba, Hungary and many other countries! See the updated list of media items below, and check out the link to the interactive 3D globe with the ocean sediments map.

Countries where the story has been covered so far:

Australia, UK, USA, India, Italy, Germany, Spain, Hungary, Austria, Cuba, Costa Rica and Peru.

Radio Interviews
ABC 774 Melbourne
World’s first digital seafloor map reveals ‘paradise’ – ABC Rural Radio
ABC 702 Sydney
BBC Radio 5 Live’s “Up All Night”
It took more than a year of research and sifting through thousands of samples to generate the world’s first digital map of the seafloor – ABC Country Radio (Interview at 41:10)  … Read more…

A team led by the University of Sydney School of Geosciences has created the first digital globe of seafloor sediments.

Ocean sediments cover 70% of our planet’s surface, forming the substrate for the largest ecosystem on Earth and its largest carbon reservoir – but the most recent map of seafloor geology was drawn by hand over 40 years ago, at the dawn of modern ocean exploration.

That’s about to change. In a gargantuan effort Adriana Dutkiewicz and her colleagues carefully analysed and categorised 15,000 seafloor sediment samples to reveal the nature of sedimentary blankets over ocean ridges, seamounts and the vast abyssal plains. She teamed up with big data experts to find the best way to use modern computer algorithms to turn the vast sea of point observations into a continuous digital map.  … Read more…