Not all of Hurricane Ike’s damage to Galveston was on the surface.

A new mapping of the seafloor beneath Bolivar Roads shows extensive erosion and damage, according to a new study by scientists from the University of Texas.

Researchers had led students on a seafloor-mapping run of the Roads in the spring, which provided them with a baseline to compare the post-Ike situation.

And it’s pretty grim.

“[T]he hurricane significantly reshaped the seafloor and likely carried an enormous amount of sand and sediment out into the Gulf,” Science Daily reports.

The pictures show that big ridges under the roads have been significantly reduced.

All’s not lost, though: “The big question is whether the sand was entirely removed from the system or if it’s still close enough to the shoreline to get back into the system,” said John Goff, survey team member and senior research scientist at the university’s Jackson School of Geosciences.

— Richard Connelly

This article appears in Oct 5-30, 2008.