> I don't see why that data should be held classified, at least make this project a little bit easier.

Really, you don't see why the military would want to keep the strategic advantage of keeping what they know about the sea floor secret?

I think it should be all be declassified for the public good, but I can understand why they would want to keep it classified: by revealing where they've mapped, they reveal where they've been. Quality variations in different parts of the map could also reveal where they spend more time, or at what depths. But I'm skeptical that it really matters.

Or they awoke eldritch leviathans who now command them.

Nothing is Beyond Their Reach

Reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-247

> Really, you don't see why the military would want to keep the strategic advantage of keeping what they know about the sea floor secret?

It's all about to be "de-classified" anyway once the first of these sort of projects kicks off.

Subs don't typically dive that deep only a few hundred (US Los Angeles class) to 2000 or so (US Seawolf class) (of course this is stated depth but speculation gets us nowhere). The ocean averages over 3.5 km deep so most of it is beyond the range of subs so they probably have pretty good maps of up to the continental shelf but beyond that it gets less useful.

Yep. The Navy already has an extensive map of the ocean floor

I thought woods hole "serpedipitously discovered" a lot of stuff.