The Hudson Canyon, a sub-sea landscape 100 miles of the New Jersey-New York coast, has now been fully mapped. A four-year study has produced detailed readings of the undersea region the size of Connecticut, and well, to state the obvious, it's huge folks. It's like a state-sized undersea Grand Canyon.

According to scientists, the maps will allow them to confirm many things, including whether or not methane gas trapped in frozen sediment below the sea floor is escaping and contributing to global warming.

Others are also looking into possibilities for tapping into the methane deposits. Harvesting the methane and turning it into a potential energy source. The scientists are also also interested in finding out if sudden methane gas releases from deposits in the canyon could spark undersea landslides and cause a tsunami to hit New York-New Jersey coast. Though that is a pretty extreme effect that a canyon landslide could produce, a more likely cause for concern is that the landslides could destroy the undersea phone cables that handle most of the outside communication of the US.

Peter Rona, the Rutgers University Professor who led the team that made the maps had this to say: "This region, the Hudson Canyon, is on the doorstep of one of the largest metropolitan areas of the world, and it is an exploration frontier."

Sea-lab 2021 anyone?