Reliable information on the depth and floor structure of the
Southern Ocean has so far been available for only few coastal regions of the
Antarctic. An international team of scientists under the leadership of the
Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, has
for the first time succeeded in creating a digital map of the entire Antarctic
seafloor. The International Bathymetric Chart of the Southern Ocean (IBCSO) for
the first time shows the detailed topography of the seafloor for the entire
area south of 60°S. An article presented to the scientific world by IBCSO has
now appeared online in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters. The
IBCSO data grid and the corresponding Antarctic chart will soon be freely
available in the internet and are intended to help scientists amongst others to
better understand and predict sea currents, geological processes or the
behaviour of marine life.