Highly sensitive radar altimeters in Earth orbit sense minute changes in sea level caused by the gravitational attraction of topography on the seafloor. Algorithms that predict the shape of the seafloor implied by the altimeter data allow researchers, for the first time, to produce detailed maps of the largely unexplored Southern Oceans. These new charts have found a number of applications, such as in finding new fishing grounds on shallow submarine banks, improving estimates of the inventory of submarine volcanism, determining the azimuths of faults which mark the past and present drift of tectonic plates, and planning better oceanographic expeditions.

McNutt, M. K. and A. Bonneville, Prediction of Bathymetry from Satellite altimetry data, Endeavor, 20, 4, 1996.