Map the Gaps is a nonprofit dedicated to ocean floor exploration. We bring together people, vessels and funding to map the seafloor in high resolution, and we share what we find as open-access data. Tim Kearns founded Map the Gaps in 2019 with fellow Grand Prize winners of the Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE.

We choose regions based on need and urgency, working with our partners and donors. We map the seafloor and share the results publicly.

Our team has mapped some of the most challenging seafloor on the planet. Map the Gaps’ founders were part of the GEBCO-Nippon Foundation team that won the Shell Ocean Discovery XPRIZE, a global competition to map the deep ocean with autonomous technology. In Curaçao, we partnered with Fabien Cousteau, PROTEUS Ocean Group, R2Sonic and QPS to map the island’s entire marine protected area in high resolution. That work prepared the site for what is planned as the world’s largest underwater habitat. For the Five Deeps Expedition, the first crewed dives to the deepest point of each ocean, we sent ocean mappers from seven countries on the transit and dive legs.