How many of our readers, before picking up this issue, would have said bathymetry is an integral part of oceanography? An old New Yorker cartoon has someone remark, “I don’t know why I don’t care about the bottom of the ocean, but I don’t.” This issue of Oceanography is full of good reasons to care.

Smith, W.H.F. 2004. Introduction to this special issue on bathymetry from space. Oceanography 17(1):6–7, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2004.62.

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