A new map of the ocean floor reveals the deepest trenches and parts of the ocean previously never seen before.

This map reveals thousands of mountains (or seamounts) that hold clues as to how continents and the Earth formed early on. Earthquakes are often related to the presence of seamounts.

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This new data also helps determine earthquakes caused by seamounts, which were apparently volcanoes during the early formation of the Earth.

According to the National Science Foundation, scientists and researchers consolidated new satellite data and combined it with previous information to produce the new and elaborate map.

Don Rice, program director of the National Science Foundation's Division of Ocean Sciences, said the method that led to the discovery of uncharted regions of the ocean floor provided high resolution details and information about the ocean's floor structure and system, along with its geothermal processes.

He adds this will allow future research that will hopefully answer the mysteries of how the ocean's geophysical processes work, especially those strongly linked to earthquakes and volcanoes.

According to David Sandwell, geophysicist and lead author of the study from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the seamounts are abyssal hills and the most common land formations found anywhere on Earth.

This new and improved map of the ocean floor will be pivotal in adding to the information and data scientists possess, especially about seafloor depth. Some 80 percent of the ocean is still uncharted and unexplored.

New features such as the continental seamounts that links South America to Africa along with ridges located in the Gulf of Mexico are now included in Google's Ocean Maps.

Data for this new map of the ocean floor was collected by the European Space Agency's CryoSat-2 satellite used for monitoring polar ice, and NASA's Jason-1 satellite that has been measuring and mapping gravity fields for the past decade.

This particular study is funded by the National Science Foundation and supported by ConocoPhillips, the U.S. Office of Naval Research and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

TagsSatellite Data Reveals Thousands of Underwater Mountains Never Seen Before, NASA, ESA, National Science Foundation, google ocean maps, seamounts, new ocean map seamounts, seafloor map