Every day we inch closer to some profound realization about humans and where we came from, but no one seems in a rush to figure it out.
Funding is tight to a degree that I don't think people from the traditional STEM disciplines realize. The average grant size is far lower than the average NSF grant despite much greater fieldwork costs [1]. The financial restrictions mean you're constantly weighing how important it really is to do basic checks like carbon dating, or whether you can afford imagery (vs just using a printout of google maps). I remember being heartbroken at losing a drone because the money spent buying it, and having to camp in fields and eat fish for long periods because I couldn't afford lodging/other food.
[1] https://dougsarchaeology.wordpress.com/2014/03/12/does-the-s...
I would imagine at some point getting overhead satellite imagery by plane of the entire world seemed impossible - as did street view coverage of the entire US - but not the craziest expense once you have the ability to do it once.
I think this is one of the systems used during the MH370 search, apparently it can scan 192km² per day.
There are 161,000,000 km² of ocean, so you'd need at least a million days or 3,000 years to scan the whole thing, give or take.
I would think they would need a version that doesn't need the ship nearby to scale - but would still guess this is something that will be accomplished on the order of 30 years from now.
Sorry if you aren't the best choice, but I had to ask someone in the thread.
Why? I mean why all the ocean?
If the purpose is to find archeological sites, most will be on the continental platform.
Certainly doesn't sound easy, but it'd be interesting to hear from anyone who works in this area.
Ancient human tools have been found by fishing boats in Doggerland, the portion of the North Sea that used to be a land bridge between Europe and England. I bet there's a whole lot more discoveries to made just a few miles offshore.
It's also common for there to be surface expressions of sites, as long as your signal filtering and sensors are good enough. Even the 1m data the UK publishes has been amazingly useful.
With the data I've seen from modern high end sensors, whew.