Sources & models
What has been measured, what is supported by historical evidence, and what has been designed for learning? These distinctions are part of every discovery.
Real terrain data
The geographic ocean regions use subsets of NOAA ETOPO 2022. The landscape is uniformly reduced to 1% scale; displayed depths refer to the real location. The grid cannot fully represent small rocks, caves or individual habitats.
NOAA NCEI · ETOPO 2022 · DOI & dataset
Recorded wildlife observations
Historical observation points in the Monterey subset come from the NOAA National Deep-Sea Coral and Sponge Database. Observation notes identify the date, contributor and accuracy. A historical sighting does not prove that an animal still lives there today. The 3D markers are simplified representations, not reconstructions of individual animals.
NOAA · Deep-Sea Coral & Sponge Database
Animals, wrecks and geology
Individual knowledge cards and learning stations link to their scientific sources, including NOAA, Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Smithsonian. The kelp forest is a composed Californian community, not a surveyed dive site. Animal numbers and swimming paths are chosen for the learning scene. Titanic year comparisons and volcano and tsunami models illustrate processes; they are not exact historical recordings, live data or forecasts.
Monterey Bay Aquarium · Kelp forest
Smithsonian · Titanic
NOAA · Tsunami
Image and material credits
New animal and plant illustrations and added kelp and sediment textures were generated specifically for this project using AI. Prompts and provenance are documented. Existing sand and rock materials Ground054 and Rock030 come from ambientCG (CC0). The named NOAA terrain and observation datasets are released under CC0. Data citations do not grant blanket permission to reuse photographs from linked websites.