Seamount - Geography

Geography

Seamounts can be found in every ocean basin in the world, distributed extremely widely both in space and in age. A seamount is technically defined as an isolated elevational rising of 1,000 m (3,281 ft) or more from the surrounding seafloor, and with a limited summit area, a definition drafted in 1964. This definition is no longer strictly adhered to however, and some scientists recognize features as short as 100 m (328 ft) as seamounts. Under the strictest definition there are up to 100,000 seamounts in the oceans, and under the loosest there may be as many as 2 million; however, there are many very small and very deep seamounts that are difficult to analyze, so the true number may never be known.

Most seamounts are volcanic in origin, and thus tend to be found on oceanic crust near mid-ocean ridges, mantle plumes, and island arcs. Nearly half of the world's seamounts are found in the Pacific Ocean, and the rest are distributed mostly across the Atlantic and Indian oceans. Overall there is also a significant bias in distribution towards the southern hemisphere.

Seamounts are often found in groupings or submerged archipelagos, a classic example being the Emperor Seamounts, an extension of the Hawaiian Islands. Formed millions of years ago by volcanism, they have since subsided far below sea level. This long chain of islands and seamounts extends thousands of kilometers northwest from the island of Hawaii. Isolated seamounts and those without clear volcanic origins are less common; examples include Bollons Seamount, Eratosthenes Seamount, Axial Seamount and Gorringe Ridge. If all known seamounts were collected into one area, they would make a landform the size of Europe. Their overall abundance makes them one of the most common, and least understood, marine structures and biomes on Earth, a sort of exploratory frontier.

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