@Alpha2Omega, nice theory, only there isn't a shred of truth in it!
These are the same. Traditionally, drawings are made with down toward the bottom of the page, and that's just convention and what people are used to seeing, but it doesn't have to be this way. What would be the advantage to using the inverted, upper, drawing?
This is not just about the convention, this is about the reality, about the literal hypothetical shape of the trans-atlantic tunnel and how it would be really shaped on a supposed globe, also!
Neither "follows" the other; they are both pulled into a spherical shape by the force of earth's own gravity, so you have a slightly smaller sphere (the Abyssal Plain) below (inside) and concentric with a slightly larger one (the ocean surface). They both take that spherical shape for the same reason, but independent of each other...Sure. The answer is because the surface of the water makes an equipotential surface; every point on it has the same potential energy. Absent forces other than gravity, such as wind, sea currents, tides, and rotation, sea level would be a perfect sphere (if you also assume the density of the interior of the Earth doesn't vary laterally). If any part of the ocean surface were higher (further from the center) than another, the water would flow from the high point into the low, until the potential was equalized.
GOCE GEOID :
" class="bbc_link" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Accompanying words for a video above:
After two years in orbit, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) is nearing the end of its planned life span in February, producing the most accurate map ever of the so-called geoid -- an Earth-encompassing spirit level and global reference surface. An unused supply of xeon fuel will allow the mission to be extended until at least the end of 2012.
Markedly different from a simple sphere or ellipsoid, the geoid is the mathematically 'true' shape of Earth. It represents a motionless global ocean but takes into account the effects of the Earth’s rotation, weight difference resulting from the position of mountains and ocean trenches, and uneven mass distribution and density variations in the planet’s interior.
Comment no. 1: Wow, what a lumpy piece of shit planet we live on. I'm moving to the moon.
Comment no. 2:
For some reason, I don't believe this crap. So many pictures show earth as an almost round orb. why don't the real pictures we have seen over the years make the earth look like this, if this is true. april fools one day late. I guess the next thing we'll be told, is "oops, the earth really is flat.'Comment no. 3:So they were right about the earth being flat....at least in placesComment no 4:The actual shape of planet earth as revealed by #ESA mission #GOCE GOCE GeoidComment no. 5:To anyone that thinks this is a hoax, you've been misled.
A geoid accounts for gravity and density irregularities, and depicts what a mean sea level surface would be if water could freely flow across Earth's surface. Geodesy is the field of study in which measurements are made to determine the actual shape of the planet. Geophysics also uses the concept of the geoid extensively in performing experiments and observations. This updated version of the geoid is the most accurate to date, and the implications it holds in those fields of study that employ it are massive.So, they say that the Earth looks like this, after all:
What is interesting here is that in 99 % cases you will find on the internet only upper number according to which abyssal plains vary in depth 100 cm per 1 km, although in Encyclopedia Britannica you can read these words:
These submarine surfaces vary in depth only
from 10 to 100 cm per kilometre of horizontal distance, the larger plains are hundreds of kilometres wide and thousands of kilometres long.
In reality abyssal plains are flatter than Kansas, and Kansas is much flatter than a pancake. 
http://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume9/v9i3/kansas.htmlSo, to get the idea how really flat abyssal plains are, you have to imagine something flatter than these:
"The plains of Venezuela and New Granada, in South America, chiefiy on the left of the Orinoco, are termed llanos, or level fields. Often in the space of 270 square miles THE SURFACE DOES NOT VARY A SINGLE FOOT."
"The Amazon only falls 12 feet in the last 700 miles of its course;
the La Plata has only a descent of one thirty-third of an inch a mile,"
A FLAT SURFACE IS THE GENERAL CONTOUR OF THE BED OF THE GREAT OCEANS FOR TENS OF THOUSANDS OF SQUARE MILES.In above picture what we are really facing with, is kind of a timid recognition of the fact that abyssal plains are flatter than anything else in the world.
An abyssal plain is an underwater plain on the deep ocean floor, usually found at depths between 3000 and 6000 m. Lying generally between the foot of a continental rise and a mid-ocean ridge, abyssal plains cover more than 50% of the Earth’s surface. They are among the flattest, smoothest and least explored regions on Earth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abyssal_plain
The abyssal plains cover about 30% of the Atlantic and nearly 75% of the Pacific ocean floors.
So, without the gravity, the surface of an oceans would follow the shape of the bottom of the oceans which is flat.
Now, what about the gravity?
1. In a letter to Dr. Bentley. Feb. 25th, 1692,
Newton says ;—
“ That gravitation should be innate and inherent in matter, so that one body can act upon another at a distance — is to me SO GREAT AN ABSURDITY, that I believe no man who has, in philosophical matters, a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it .” Yet many have fallen into this “great absurdity.” Such men therefore—according to Newton — have not "a competent faculty of thinking” in philosophical matters.
I am happy to be in agreement with Sir Isaac on this important point.Sir Robert Ball says: —
“The law of gravitation ... underlies the whole of Astronomy.” (Story of the Heavens, p. 122). It does not speak very well for the Astronomy, if it is founded on an acknowledged “great absurdity.” 2. The idea of Earth’s rotation was not being accepted by most thinkers (in all times) because of one logical reason; objects on a rotating Earth should be repelled off the surface. Unconsciously, the Newtonian fellows sacrificed their precious gravity in order to enforce the idea of Earth’s rotation: objects on a rotating Earth are subject to gravity which holds them down. They had believed that the sacrifice is a matter of 0.35% of the total gravity.
Here is the precious sacrifice: if the Earth were experiencing a rotation, then the concept of gravity is useless to hold objects down. The greatest task of holding objects down on a rotating Earth (rigid and air) would become for the real-change of air pressure in the atmosphere. The gravity would become a redundant force and should leave the Earth. The Newtonian fellows accept that, the air atmosphere undergoes a rotation with the rigid Earth. Otherwise, if the Earth rotates without the air atmosphere, it will leave the air behind; it will generate a huge dynamic pressure. Read more :
http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=62346.msg1645003#msg16450033. Take the Earth, for instance. Classical physics sees the force of gravity as some type of almost magical attractive force between stars and planets. Ether theory has a totally different view. The reason we fall back to the Earth when we jump up is not this mystical force of gravity, but rather it is because the Earth is constantly absorbing a tremendous amount of ether to keep all of its elementary particles spinning. We are just in the way of this influx. This view explains what gravity is, and also explains Tesla’s seemingly odd statement that the sun is absorbing more energy than it is radiating. The more you think about it, the more this seemingly nutty idea makes perfect sense. The sun requires a gargantuan amount of etheric energy to keep its integrity.
Once it is realised that electrons spin at speeds in excess of the speed of light, a new paradigm is born. The idea simply is that the elementary particles, by their nature, are absorbing ether all the time. This influx is what gravity is. As ether is absorbed two things happen. (1) The process enables the elementary particles to maintain their spin, and (2) Simultaneously, this etheric energy, probably stemming from what some physicists call the zero point energy realm, which is a vast reservoir of untapped energy, is transformed into electromagnetic energy. That is Grand Unification, Einstein’s dream of how to combine gravity with electromagnetism.
Tesla understood ether theory a lot better than Einstein did, and he dismissed Einstein’s famous equation E=mc2 as mathematical poppycock.
4. http://gsjournal.net/Science-Journals/Essays-Gravity/Download/5339On top of that:
We know from practical experiment that water will find its level, and cannot by any possibility remain other than level, or flat, or horizontal — whatever term may be used to express the idea.http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/forum/index.php?topic=62346.msg1650046#msg1650046