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Shallow Nation

August 8th, 2009 at 1:58 pm

National Geographic Drain the Ocean (Video, Photos)

National Geographic Drain the Ocean

Here are National Geographic Drain the Ocean video and photos. The program airs on Sunday, August 9, 2009 at 9 p.m. PT/ET on National Geographic channel. The two-hour documentary is narrated by Avery Brooks (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) and is a virtual expedition miles below the surface of the ocean around the world.

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National Geographic Drain the Ocean will show what lies beneath the ocean, revealing spectacular and breathtaking landscapes more extraordinary than any on the surface of the Earth.

New technology and a global mapping system developed at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California at San Diego has enabled scientists to compile sonar data and render it into multicolored 3-D images. It is quite literally like “draining the ocean” to see the wonders that lie beneath the waters.

Top Photo: OAHU, HAWAII: Oahu is no longer an active volcano and is now eroding. Yet there is evidence just offshore of past activity, such as the Nu’uanu landslide, caused by a steam explosion of unimaginable size.(photo credit: Steve Nicholls)

National Geographic Drain the Ocean

GULFOSS, ICELAND: Iceland’s rugged and dramatic topography comes from the fact that it is a section of the volcanic mid-Atlantic ridge that rises above the surface of the ocean.
(photo credit © Steve Nicholls)

With the use of computer-generated imagery (CGI) along with cutting-edge digital ocean-mapping technology, the world’s leading geologists and oceanographers and geologists are able to re-create these spectacular formations that are constantly growing and shifting beneath the surface of the world’s oceans. Further, the technology enables them to place themselves virtually within these landscapes, thus giving viewers a revealing and fascinating look at the landscape that covers more than three-quarters of the surface of the earth.

Additionally, the documentary uses the latest technological advances in deep-sea exploration to visually render sights humans would not be able to survive due to the extremes of freezing temperatures and intense bone-pulverizing pressure. Few have seen these those sights and those who have have done so only via manned submersibles or remotely operated vehicles (ROVs).

Check out some National Geographic Drain the Ocean video and photos below.

National Geographic Drain the Ocean

BAHAMAS: The typical image of the Bahamas. But the flat islands and calm seas hide the huge structure of the Great Bahama Bank. (photo credit: Steve Nicholls)

National Geographic Drain the Ocean

ICELAND: The southern coast of Iceland, where the mid-Atlantic ridge disappears back beneath the waves.(photo credit © Steve Nicholls)

Video: Scientists map the floor of Monterey Bay using the latest technology. A huge canyon, 300 miles long and one mile deep is revealed. Link: National Geographic Drain the Ocean video

Video: “Draining the Pacific reveals a mountain larger than Everest and a new Hawaiian island on the rise. Link: National Geographic Drain the Ocean Video

Photos and video courtesy of National Geographic Channel