Schmidt Ocean Institute’s research vessel Falkor has collected the first public seafloor data of the New Year, as part of a global effort to map the entire ocean floor by 2030. Australian scientists aboard the ship literally “Pinged in the New Year” as they sent sonar waves down to the ocean floor at midnight on December 31, 2020 and throughout New Year’s Day, flying the first official flag of The Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project. This also marks the start of the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.

The expedition is a collaboration between Schmidt Ocean Institute, Seabed 2030 and Australian research institutions, and seeks to map significant seafloor features in the Tasman and Coral seas, offshore Eastern Australia. Seabed 2030 aims to facilitate the complete mapping of the global ocean floor by 2030 and will make the data freely available.