What are Seamounts?

April 28, 2023

Recently, in an astonishing discovery, scientists have reported finding 19,325 new seamounts after poring through new high-resolution data.

About Seamounts:

  • It is an underwater mountain formed through volcanic activity.
  • These are recognised as hotspots for marine life. Like volcanoes on land, seamounts can be active, extinct or dormant volcanoes.
  • These are formed near mid-ocean ridges, where the earth’s tectonic plates are moving apart, allowing molten rock to rise to the seafloor.
  • The planet’s two most-studied mid-ocean ridges are the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the East Pacific Rise.
  • Some seamounts have also been found near intraplate hotspots – regions of heavy volcanic activity within a plate – and oceanic island chains with a volcanic and seismic activity called island arcs.
  • Significance of seamounts
    • They provide information about the mantle’s composition and how tectonic plates evolve.
    • Oceanographers also study seamounts to understand their influence on how water circulates and absorbs heat and carbon dioxide.
    • Seamounts are home to diverse biological communities. They are good places for life because they can cause localised ocean upwelling – the process by which nutrient-rich water from deep within the ocean moves up to the surface.

Key Facts about the Mid-Atlantic Ridge

  • It is the largest geological feature on the planet. 
  • It is a mostly underwater mountain range in the Atlantic Ocean.
  • It is about 3 km in height above the ocean floor and 1000 to 1500 km wide, has numerous transform faults and an axial rift valley along its length.
  • It separates the North American Plate from the Eurasian Plate in the North Atlantic and the South American Plate from the African Plate in the South Atlantic