$7 Million Xprize For Deep Ocean Exploration (businesswire.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Peter Diamandis announced today the launch of a new Xprize competition. $7 million is available for teams who are capable of pushing the boundaries of ocean exploration. "Our oceans cover two-thirds of our planet's surface and are a crucial global source of food, energy, economic security, and even the air we breathe, yet 95 percent of the deep sea remains a mystery to us," Diamandis said. The competition goals are as follows: "In each round, teams will complete a series of tasks, including making a bathymetric map (a map of the sea floor), producing high-resolution images of a specific object, and identifying archeological, biological or geological features. Teams also must show resiliency and durability by proving they can operate their technologies, deployed from the shore or air, at a depth of up to 4,000 meters."

Comments

This is helping drill for oil

[rgbe]

This is not about discovering the oceans and what lives there or the geology of the depths. This about helping Shell (the sponsor) create cheaper technogolies such that they can drill for oil. The requirements they have laid out are weak, for example "depth of up to 4,000 meters". The ocean deepest point is almost 11,000 meters. The drilling technology in the future will be reaching 4,000 meters.

I usually envisage Xprizes as advancing the worlds technologies on a shoestring budget in areas that we have limited knowledge, such as sending a rocket to the moon and taking a photo of the surface and beaming it back to Earth.