Now we can all be deep-sea explorers

Get a glimpse of a whole world under the sea with Niwa's bathymetric datasets and images.

This post originally appeared on sciblogs.co.nz.

Newsflash: It's now possible to explore the deep sea without having to leave the couch. No need to get cold and cramped sitting for hours inside the confined space of a submersible.

NIWA have just released an incredible online resource of seafloor images covering the whole of New Zealand's Exclusive Economic Zone. Have you ever wondered what lies beneath the blue as you have flown over Cook Strait? Did you know that there is a massive network of undersea canyons off Otago? And have you ever realised just how quickly you can plunge into the deep ocean just off the coast of Fiordland? It's also very cool to explore the abyssal Pyuseger and Kermadec trenches that mark the fault line to the south and north of the country.

I am often awed by how little we know about the marine area that makes up more than 90 per cent of our country! But then on the other hand, perhaps the fact that much of this approximately four million square kilometres of seafloor is classified as "deep sea" provides a pretty good excuse. One of our resident deep sea explorers, Peter Batson, published an excellent book called Deep New Zealand: Blue Water, Black Abyss a few years ago. This, or his website, is a must-see if you want to learn more and see some beautiful photos and drawings of crazy deep sea life forms.

To get exploring, go to www.niwa.co.nz/our-science/oceans/bathymetry. NIWA has only just launched these maps, however, and it seems there are a few small teething issues. For now, to download, you can right click, open the link in a new window/tab, then save each image. For those interested in how the seabed in such deep areas is mapped, there is great information here.

Dr Rebecca McLeod is a marine ecologist at the University of Otago. View her work and that of 30 other scientists and science writers at Sciblogs, New Zealand's largest science blogging network.