Characterizing the Seabed: a Geoscience Perspective

Abstract

The sea with its seabed has assets that have become extensively exploited as a source for food, energy and transport. Traditionally, the advancements of mankind on land have been more successful than in the oceans, mostly due to a physical setting that challenges easy-access and low-cost operations. However, this is gradually changing under the combined factors of the depletion of the required new resources as assets on land, and an increasing demand, resulting in an increased attention for the oceans. Meanwhile, the oceans remain mostly unknown, could be hostile and are for sure fragile. In this contribution, our aim is not to explore the possibilities laying in the oceans and its seabed as other chapters in this book extensively cover them. Our objective is to inform about the seabed itself and define it, by asking some key questions that geoscientists could answer: What is the seabed made up of? Is the seabed a static entity or will the bed change over time? How could human activity influence the physical consistency of the seabed? These questions are basic but compulsory if one wish to implement a regulatory regime to seabed activities. It may be obvious, but decision-makers have to know what they regulate.