Nature Atlas
Things this atlas does not know. Each entry is a question that specialists
have posed and not settled, recorded with what would actually resolve it and which
expertise the answer needs.
These are kept deliberately, rather than quietly omitted. An atlas that shows
only what it is sure of implies a confidence it has not earned, and the gaps are often where
the interesting work is. Several sit exactly where two fields fail to meet: identifying the
hyssop of the Hebrew Bible needs a botanist and a philologist of Biblical Hebrew, and neither
one settles it alone.
Grouped by the part of the atlas the question sits in. Start here if you know the territory better than the technique.
Showing 21 to 22 of 22 open questions, page 2 of 2.
Not Yet Classified 22
Deep Sea
How large is the deep sea, in square kilometers?
Open Deep Sea
Why It Is Open Published figures for the total area of the deep ocean floor vary by more than 10 percent depending on the depth-contour definition used (commonly 200m) and the underlying bathymetric data set, ranging from roughly 300 to 335 million square kilometers in different sources; NOAA itself states the extent only as a share of the ocean (over 90 percent of the ocean is deep ocean) rather than a single agreed area figure, and less than 0.001 percent of the deep seafloor has ever been directly observed, which is part of why no more precise consensus figure exists.
What Would Settle It A single, standardized global bathymetric survey below the 200m contour, using one consistent methodology, of the kind not yet completed as of this writing (Seabed 2030 and similar mapping initiatives are working toward this but are not yet complete).
Expertise Needed Oceanography and bathymetric mapping
Question posed in
How Much of the Ocean Has Been Explored? (NOAA Ocean Exploration), Ocean fact: How much of the ocean has been explored?.
Wild Silk Moth
What Is the IUCN Conservation Status of the Wild Silk Moth?
Open Wild Silk Moth
Why It Is Open The Wikipedia article on Bombyx mandarina, fetched live for this pass, carries no IUCN Red List conservation status; the species may be unassessed or assessed only in a specialist source not consulted here.
What Would Settle It An IUCN Red List entry, or a Lepidoptera-specific conservation assessment, naming a status for Bombyx mandarina.
Question posed in
Bombyx mandarina (Wikipedia).