The Saildrone Surveyor mission discovered the unnamed 975m high formation while mapping the seafloor off
According to the National Oceanic AdministrationUS Atmospheric Research (NOAA), the size of the unnamed formation does not allow it to be classified as a seamount - from 1,000 m above the surrounding seafloor. Nevertheless, oceanographers named the object that way. This is because, like other formations of this type, the mountain has steep slopes rising above the seabed, and the remains of an extinct volcano.
Seamounts formed by volcanicactivity, sometimes rise above the surface of the ocean and turn into islands, such as Hawaii. But this object is completely flooded, and the crater at the top is located at a depth of 366 m below sea level. Apart from it, the strange seamount looks nothing like a volcano.
“Usually seamounts are characterized by slopingslopes like Mount Fuji,” explains Aurora Elmore, program manager at the NOAA Joint Institute for Ocean Research. “But this formation is very cool and more like a tower.” She guessed how the unusual donut-shaped peak of the volcano appeared. Perhaps it's all about fast and intense volcanic activity. Or - in the accumulations of marine detritus, which made the slopes sharper.
Saildrone Surveyor, the world's largest uncrewed oceanographic vehicle, discovered a bizarrely shaped mountain 322 km off the coast of northern California.
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Cover image credit: Saildrone/NOAA (Screenshot from Saildrone YouTube account)