Submarine Cable Map

Stylish, informative map of oceanic cables: zoomable; from the folks at Telegeography. Of interest to ecomedia scholars because of the technique of mapping, perhaps the most important representational medium in the field, and also because of the topic. The sheer scale of fibre optics, the materials involved (for example in cladding, but also the immense energy needed to purify and fuse fibre and rare minerals required to manufacture optical glass), and the wiful ignorance of those who lay it (and will never attempt to retrieve it after its working life is done) about its ecological effects in use (magnetic fields’ impacts on deep water marine life) and after  (how will silicates react under tonnes of pressure in the deep ocean floor)?