Seabed Morphology Feature Glossary for Marine Classification

A glossary of seabed morphology features provides standardized definitions and schematic diagrams for classifying seabed geomorphology. The resource was created by an international collaboration of marine geoscientists from mapping programs in Norway, Ireland, the UK, and Australia. It was published in 2020 as an update to a 2016 classification scheme.

Use Cases

• Standardizing seabed feature terminology like 'canyon' or 'ridge' across international mapping projects.
• Training machine learning models for automated seabed classification using the defined feature catalog.
• Validating and annotating geospatial datasets by referencing the glossary's feature definitions and diagrams.
• Developing consistent marine habitat maps by applying the classification scheme's morphology categories.

Strengths

• Glossary is an international collaboration from four national marine mapping programs.
• Feature definitions are primarily drawn from the authoritative IHO guide for undersea feature names.
• Includes representative schematic diagrams for each glossary entry to support clear classification.

Limitations

• The dataset is a glossary/document, lacking quantitative sample data or row/column counts for analysis.
• Geographic coverage of the underlying mapping data used to develop the scheme is not specified.
• The associated Part 2 Geomorphology feature glossary is in a separate, subsequent report.

Provenance

Source

Collaboration between marine mapping programs: MAREANO (Norway), INFOMAR (Ireland), MAREMAP (UK), and Geoscience Australia (Australia).

Collection Method

Feature terms and definitions were drawn and modified from the IHO guide, augmented with additional terms to cover observed seabed diversity.

Freshness

Last platform update was 2026-04-04, but the core glossary version was published in 2020.