Something doesn't add up to me.
It's been said that only 90% of the oceans have been charted or explored.
So how can scientist say we are running out of this or that when they don't know what's this or that in 90% of the rest?
If I know that Highway 1 starts in San Francisco and ends in LA, I don't have to verify its existence in between before I have sufficient confidence to drive on it.
@mcfate you're right it verifies the existence not the contents. I agree that most of the rest is probably void of life. But, how does billions of crabs in the Bearing Straits disappear without a trace? That contorts me.
@fatslothslim Well aside from your typo (I think you meant 10% of the ocean is mapped) scientists can say that because almost everything lives in the 10% we have mapped. Oxygen doesn't reach the bottom, light doesn't reach the bottom. That eliminates plant life and plant eaters. Only carnivores and detrivores and in very specific locations chemo/thermotrophs (although those areas are generally mapped too). That's not even addressing the high pressure or temperature problems that reduces life.
@fatslothslim
Extrapolating from samples is not in any way a novel discovery.