Thread: Earth exploration in %%

Okay...
Can anyone please tell me if he knows how much of Earth was explored by modern man and was cataloged?

I'm asking this because I always wandered if there were any places left to explore on earth... :?

Thanks in advance,
tony

If you include the deep ocean then the percentage may actually be quite limited. For example only recently an unmanned vehicle managed to visit just one spot at the bottom of the Mariana trough (deepest part of ocean on earth), and they encountered organisms which they didn't expect there. So of that particular area only a single spot has been explored so far, and only by an unmanned vehicle.

Yah, oceans are pretty tricky things to explore, but as technology advances I can assume that somewhere in the very near future there will be a submarine which could explore the deepest part of the ocean for a long period of time as it's not THAT tricky machine to build :/

But what about the dry land? Is it all cataloged or there are still areas which are mystery?

Depends what you mean. Greenland and Antarctica should be easier to explore paleontologically as the ice gives way.

You asked about cataloging. If you mean how many species have been identified and formally named it's between 1.5 and 1.8 million. The total number of living species is estimated to be between 3.6 and 100 million, with a median estimate of 10 million, so it's possible that we have only identified between 1/3 and a tiny fraction of the total species.

This is according to Edward O. Wilson in The Future of Life.

Does exploring underground count as exploration? and that combined with the fact that 68% is covered in water, with 70% of that unexplored, then we probably discovered 5% of the earth.

All land mass surface that we actually charted is about 92 to 95%. Because some deserts tend to change, and can't really be charted. and also some rainforest has not been located by foot, but by sattelite. Also, some permafrost is melting of the mountains, that also needs recharting. Etc etc.

Or do changes like that not count? Ok, silly me then

Originally Posted by Bunbury

You asked about cataloging. If you mean how many species have been identified and formally named it's between 1.5 and 1.8 million. The total number of living species is estimated to be between 3.6 and 100 million, with a median estimate of 10 million, so it's possible that we have only identified between 1/3 and a tiny fraction of the total species.

This is according to Edward O. Wilson in The Future of Life.

Yep and one old man and his family managed to round up a male and female of all of those species and put them all on a boat for 40 days. That's the gospel truth.

Really depends what's meant by "explored." We've probably explored the entire surface at least remotely, for example by radar, including what's under the ice. Just beneath the surface we've probably just really started to "explore," usually in search of oil.

To what level of detail do you mean? We have satellite photos of the everywhere on the planet. Have we identified every species of plant and animal? No. Have we mapped every twist and turn of every river and stream? No. Have we found every group of people? Probably no. Have we detailed topographic surveys at a scale of 1:25,000? No.

I would say there's quite a lot of Earth left to explore. Not just ocean, but actual land. There's countless regions where no human foot has ever stood, and Islands that are still un-touched. Although most islands have been explored by now, some retain their virginity.

Think about how vast nations like Russia, Canada, and even China with it's huge population are. There's plenty of mountains that haven't been scaled, tonnes of lakes that haven't been dived, and lots of open expanses that might have seen a human come around once every 500 years.
It's exciting to know, and I believe we have all pretty much been somwhere that no one else has really ventured into detail before.