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A huge underwater mountain, otherwise known as a sea mountain, has been discovered on the floor of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Guatemala.
The seamount is most likely the remnant of an extinct volcano, as most seamounts are, according to NOAA Ocean Exploration, a federal program that is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. At 1,600 meters (5,249 feet) tall, it is nearly twice as tall as Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building, according to a news release from the Schmidt Ocean Institute, a nonprofit organization that promotes oceanographic research.
The massive structure — which covers 14 square kilometers (5.4 square miles) and sits 2,400 meters (7,874 feet) below sea level — was discovered in July during the SOI expedition, which is part of the institute’s efforts to explore the ocean to explore further, using a research vessel called Falkor (also). The ship is designed to map the seabed using a multi-beam echo sounder, which sends sound waves to the ocean floor in a fan pattern, then measures the time it takes for the sound to reach and return back.
Tomer Ketter, a hydrographer and marine technician with the Schmidt Ocean Institute, was also on board, a spokesman for the institute said, and Ketter confirmed that the seamount was not in any database that measures ocean depth, including the General Bathymetric Chart of the Ocean.
“An ocean over 1.5 kilometers high that, until now, has been hidden beneath the waves, shows a lot of what we have yet to discover,” said Dr. Jyotika Virmani, executive director of the Schmidt Ocean Institute, in the news release . “Mapping the entire seabed is fundamental to understanding our oceans so it’s exciting to live in an era where technology allows us to map and see these amazing parts of our planet for the first time.”
The seabed was discovered 84 nautical miles outside the Exclusive Economic Zone of Guatemala. There are estimated to be more than 100,000 knots higher than 1,000 meters (3,280 feet) worldwide, but less than a tenth of a percent have been explored, according to NOAA.
“Marine remains have only recently been explored with the advent of human-occupied submersibles and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs),” said Les Watling, professor of biology emeritus at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. by email. Watling was not involved in the discovery but was part of the Schmidt Ocean Institute’s 2019 exploration.
Finding a seamount
“It’s amazing that it’s not on the chart,” Watling said, noting that most of the ocean floor remains unexplored. (NOAA estimates that less than 25% of the ocean floor has been mapped as of 2023.)
Ocean researchers know the location of most sea features – even uncharted and unexplored ones – on Earth thanks to satellite radar altimeters, which are used to detect small differences in sea level by the time it takes for a radar pulse to measure. launched from a satellite to reach the surface of the sea and return, Watling said. Above a sea location, the surface of the ocean will bulge slightly, allowing the detection of large underwater mountains.
About 11 kilometers (6.8 miles) from where the sea device was mapped, the satellite altimetry showed a modeled seamount, and it is likely that this seamount was recently mapped, Ketter said, since a location could the pins of the model being off by other land masses. in the area. The sea was not previously mapped or known, its location only predicted from satellite data, he said.
The recently discovered seamount may be taller than the world’s tallest building, but some have been found to be 4,000 meters (13,123 feet) or more, Watling said. The world’s tallest mountain, Mauna Kea in Hawaii – which measures more than 10,210 meters (33,500 feet) from base to peak – started out as a sea, according to NOAA.
Seamounts act as biodiversity hotspots
Due to the geological formation of beaches, the mountains tend to act as biodiversity hotspots, providing a hard surface that corals, sponges and other marine invertebrates can cling to.
“Marine volumes create unique ecosystems because the slow currents above the seafloor typically speed up to 10 times as they flow around these obstacles,” said Tony Koslow, research oceanographer emeritus with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego. , in an email.
The accelerating currents create the hard rock substrate to which invertebrates attach themselves while drawing in other fauna that feed on food particles swept up by the currents, said Koslow, author of “The Silent Deep: The Discovery, Ecology, and Conservation of the Deep Sea.” He had nothing to do with the discovery.
Researchers estimate that between 15% and 35% of endemic ocean species live in marine ecosystems, and migratory species also seek out the structures to breed, feed or seek refuge, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts.
“The incredible diversity of life on a seamount has only recently been recognized,” Koslow said. “Perhaps the most significant aspect of this discovery is that it confirms that the sea floor remains uncharted.”
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