Ocean Floor Map

Ross Sea depth map

Sea: average depth about 2,026 m, deepest 4,458 m (GEBCO_2026 grid).

Shaded relief map of the world with the sea coloured by depth: dark blue for the deep ocean, light blue for shallow seasTap or scroll to load the interactive map

Sea level todayDrag the slider to lower the sea and see the land that would appear.

Sea level in metres below today’s. A simple bathtub model: it lowers the sea everywhere by the same amount and does not simulate how the water would really drain.

Key

Sea depth

  • Deeper than 6,000 m
  • 4,000 to 6,000 m
  • 2,000 to 4,000 m
  • 1,000 to 2,000 m
  • 200 to 1,000 m
  • Shallower than 200 m (the continental shelf)

Land height

  • Land up to 500 m
  • 500 to 2,000 m
  • Above 2,000 m

Drain the oceans

  • Seabed exposed when the sea is lowered A dashed white line marks today’s coast.

How to read the map. Darker blue is deeper water. Tap anywhere to see how deep the sea is there, or how high the land is, and the nearest named undersea feature. Depths come from the GEBCO_2026 grid, which in most of the deep ocean is predicted from satellite measurements of the sea surface rather than surveyed by ship, and the map’s tiles are coarser than the grid, so narrow trenches read shallower on the map than their true depth. Not for navigation.

Ross Sea at a glance

  • 2,026 maverage depth
  • 1,409 mmedian depth
  • 4,458 mmaximum depth
  • 1.1 million km²water area

Ross Sea is a sea. Inside its outline the GEBCO grid has about 1.1 million km² of water, with an average depth of about 2,026 m (the middle value is 1,409 m) and a maximum of 4,458 m, found at 72.01° S, 158.27° W.

Open the map at the deepest cell and tap to read the depth.

How deep is each part of the Ross Sea?

The bar splits the Ross Sea's water by depth. Each colour is a depth band, and the shares add up to 100%.

  • 0 to 200 m: 0.6%
  • 200 to 1,000 m: 47.5%
  • 1,000 to 4,000 m: 35.1%
  • 4,000 to 6,000 m: 16.8%
  • below 6,000 m: 0%

Named features near the deepest point: Helen ES Clark Seamount (111 km), Ross Sea Abyssal Plain (128 km), Ross Canyon (364 km), Marie Byrd Canyon (374 km).

The Ross Sea if sea level dropped

The slider on the map lowers the sea in steps. This table shows how much of the Ross Sea's water would be land at each step.

Sea level lowered byBecomes landShare of its water
10 m366 km²under 0.1%
20 m890 km²under 0.1%
50 m1,581 km²0.1%
80 m2,145 km²0.2%
120 m3,165 km²0.3%
200 m6,562 km²0.6%
500 m264,560 km²23.3%
1,000 m546,653 km²48.1%
2,000 m603,634 km²53.1%
3,000 m687,833 km²60.5%
4,000 m946,128 km²83.2%
6,000 m1.1 million km²100%

A simple bathtub model: it lowers the sea everywhere by the same amount and does not simulate how water would really drain.

Nearby seas

Nearest by the centre of each outline. All oceans and seas

Frequently asked questions

How deep is the Ross Sea?

On average about 2,026 m in the GEBCO grid (the middle value is 1,409 m). The deepest cell inside its outline is 4,458 m, at 72.01° S, 158.27° W.

How big is the Ross Sea?

About 1.1 million km² of water inside its Natural Earth outline, counted from the grid cells that are below sea level.

How much of the Ross Sea would be land if sea level dropped?

With the sea 500 m lower, about 264,560 km² (23.3%) of its water would be land. At 6,000 m lower, 100% would be. This is a simple bathtub model that lowers the sea evenly everywhere.

Data: depths from the GEBCO_2026 grid, statistics worked out inside the Natural Earth outline of the sea. See data sources and licences. The GEBCO Grid should NOT be used for navigation or for any other purpose involving safety at sea.

All oceans and seas · Undersea features · Drain the oceans

Embed this map

Copy this code into your web page. It is free to use. Please keep the link under the map, as it is how people find where the map comes from.