COBRA Webinar – June 2025

Unlocking the Seafloor: Partnerships, Platforms, and Progress in Ocean Mapping

Dr. Vicki Ferrini (Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory)

The deep seafloor remains one of Earth’s least explored regions—vast, complex, and foundational to many ocean and Earth system processes. This talk will explore how large-scale international collaborations—such as The Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 initiative—are both advancing and benefiting from open-access data infrastructure projects around the world, helping to reveal the seafloor in unprecedented detail at global scale. I’ll highlight not only the global mapping products being generated, but also some of the tools that are making these data more accessible and useful to researchers worldwide. Achieving these goals depends on the efforts of individual scientists and coordinated action across regional, national, and international levels. Together, these collaborations are expanding participation in ocean science, lowering barriers to data use, and supporting a broad spectrum of research. By mapping the unknown together, we expand knowledge, spark discovery, and accelerate progress across ocean science.