The Bear Seamount is the first guyot in a chain of about 30 extinct volcanoes extending in a straight line south-eastwards from the edge of the continental shelf near Woods Hole, Massachusetts to north-east of Bermuda. These seamounts resulted from the movement of a mantle plume hotspot. This hotspot is now under the Great Meteor Seamount. The chain rises about 4,000 metres (13,000 ft) above the surrounding Sohm Abyssal Plain. Over time they have been eroded and have developed flat table-like summits surrounded by slopes with an inclination of about 20°. The currents in the vicinity of the Bear Seamount include the warm water Gulf Stream flowing towards the north east, the deep boundary current flowing along the continental shelf towards the south west, and the deep, icy cold Arctic bottom water that flows past the lower flanks of the chain. [5]
Bear Seamount rises approximately 2,000 to 3,000 metres (6,600 to 9,800 ft) above the surrounding seabed and the roughly flat summit is about 1,100 metres (3,600 ft) below the surface of the sea. The top is covered by a deep layer of sediment through which basaltic rocks and erratic boulders protrude. Much of this material has fallen from above, probably from icebergs that drifted southwards during the Pleistocene. [5]
In marine geology, a guyot, also called a tablemount, is an isolated underwater volcanic mountain (seamount) with a flat top more than 200 m (660 ft) below the surface of the sea. The diameters of these flat summits can exceed 10 km (6 mi). Guyots are most commonly found in the Pacific Ocean, but they have been identified in all the oceans except the Arctic Ocean. They are analogous to tables on land.
A seamount is a large submarine landform that rises from the ocean floor without reaching the water surface, and thus is not an island, islet, or cliff-rock. Seamounts are typically formed from extinct volcanoes that rise abruptly and are usually found rising from the seafloor to 1,000–4,000 m (3,300–13,100 ft) in height. They are defined by oceanographers as independent features that rise to at least 1,000 m (3,281 ft) above the seafloor, characteristically of conical form. The peaks are often found hundreds to thousands of meters below the surface, and are therefore considered to be within the deep sea. During their evolution over geologic time, the largest seamounts may reach the sea surface where wave action erodes the summit to form a flat surface. After they have subsided and sunk below the sea surface, such flat-top seamounts are called "guyots" or "tablemounts".
Neocyema erythrosoma is a species of pelagic fish, a deep-water bobtail snipe eel in the family Cyematidae. It is the only member of its genus, Neocyema. It was first described by Peter Castle in 1978 after two specimens were caught at great depths in the south Atlantic Ocean in 1971. Further specimens have since been caught in the North Atlantic.
The New England Seamounts is a chain of over twenty underwater extinct volcanic mountains known as seamounts. This chain is located off the coast of Massachusetts in the Atlantic Ocean and extends over 1,000 km from the edge of Georges Bank. Many of the peaks of these mountains rise over 4,000 m from the seabed. The New England Seamounts chain is the longest such chain in the North Atlantic and is home to a diverse range of deep sea fauna. Scientists have visited the chain on various occasions to survey the geologic makeup and biota of the region. The chain is part of the Great Meteor hotspot track and was formed by the movement of the North American Plate over the New England hotspot. The oldest volcanoes that were formed by the same hotspot are northwest of Hudson Bay, Canada. Part of the seamount chain is protected by Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument.
The Cobb-Eickelberg seamount chain is a range of undersea mountains formed by volcanic activity of the Cobb hotspot located in the Pacific Ocean. The seamount chain extends to the southeast on the Pacific Plate, beginning at the Aleutian Trench and terminating at Axial Seamount, located on the Juan de Fuca Ridge. The seamount chain is spread over a vast length of approximately 1,800 km. The location of the Cobb hotspot that gives rise to these seamounts is 46° N—130° W. The Pacific plate is moving to the northwest over the hotspot, causing the seamounts in the chain to decrease in age to the southeast. Axial is the youngest seamount and is located approximately 480 km west of Cannon Beach, Oregon. The most studied seamounts that make up this chain are Axial, Brown Bear, Cobb, and Patton seamounts. There are many other seamounts in this chain which have not been explored.
Cobb Seamount is a seamount and guyot located 500 km (310 mi) west of Grays Harbor, Washington, United States. Cobb Seamount is one of the seamounts in the Cobb–Eickelberg Seamount chain, a chain of underwater volcanoes created by the Cobb hotspot that terminates near the coast of Alaska. It lies just west of the Cascadia subduction zone, and was discovered in August 1950 by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service fisheries research vessel R/V John N. Cobb. By 1967, over 927 km (576 mi) of soundings and dozens of samples from the seamount had been collected.
The Great Meteor Seamount, also called the Great Meteor Tablemount, is a guyot and the largest seamount in the North Atlantic with a volume of 24,000 km3 (5,800 cu mi). It is one of the Seewarte Seamounts, rooted on a large terrace located south of the Azores Plateau. The crust underlying Great Meteor has an age of 85 million years, deduced from the magnetic anomaly 34 (An34) at this location.
The Anton Dohrn Seamount is a guyot in the Rockall Trough in the northeast Atlantic. It is 1.8 kilometres (1.1 mi) high and is topped with pinnacles, one of which reaches a depth of 530 metres (1,740 ft). Away from the flat top upon which the pinnacles rest, the slopes fall off steeply into the Rockall Trough and a moat in the sediment that surrounds the seamount.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and introduction to Oceanography.
The habitat of deep-water corals, also known as cold-water corals, extends to deeper, darker parts of the oceans than tropical corals, ranging from near the surface to the abyss, beyond 2,000 metres (6,600 ft) where water temperatures may be as cold as 4 °C (39 °F). Deep-water corals belong to the Phylum Cnidaria and are most often stony corals, but also include black and thorny corals and soft corals including the Gorgonians. Like tropical corals, they provide habitat to other species, but deep-water corals do not require zooxanthellae to survive.
The Fogo Seamounts, also called the Fogo Seamount Chain, are a group of undersea mountains southeast of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland in the North Atlantic Ocean. This seamount chain, lying approximately 500 km (310 mi) offshore from the island of Newfoundland, consists of several submarine volcanoes that have been extinct for millions of years. They are one of the few seamount chains located in Canadian waters off the coast of Atlantic Canada.
The Corner Rise Seamounts are a chain of extinct submarine volcanoes in the northern Atlantic Ocean east of the New England Seamounts. Both it and the New England Seamounts were formed when the North American Plate moved over the Great Meteor hotspot 75 million years ago. It is the shallowest seamount in New England, with some of its nineteen highest peaks only 800–900 m deep.
Hotspot Ecosystem Research and Man's Impact On European Seas (HERMIONE) is an international multidisciplinary project, started in April 2009, that studies deep-sea ecosystems. HERMIONE scientists study the distribution of hotspot ecosystems, how they function and how they interconnect, partially in the context of how these ecosystems are being affected by climate change and impacted by humans through overfishing, resource extraction, seabed installations and pollution. Major aims of the project are to understand how humans are affecting the deep-sea environment and to provide policy makers with accurate scientific information, enabling effective management strategies to protect deep sea ecosystems. The HERMIONE project is funded by the European Commission's Seventh Framework Programme, and is the successor to the HERMES project, which concluded in March 2009.
Aldrovandia phalacra, the Hawaiian halosaurid, is a species of ray-finned fish in the family Halosauridae. It is a circumglobal species found at bathyal depths.
Coryphaenoides rupestris is a species of marine ray-finned fish in the family Macrouridae. Its common names include the rock grenadier, the roundnose grenadier and the roundhead rat-tail. In France it is known as grenadier de roche and in Spain as granadero de roca. It is a large, deep-water species and is fished commercially in the northern Atlantic Ocean.
Macrourus berglax, also known as the roughhead grenadier or onion-eye grenadier, is a species of marine ray-finned fish in the family Macrouridae. It is a deep-water fish found in the Atlantic Ocean.
Bassogigas gillii is a species of cusk-eel found in the Indian, Pacific Ocean, and Atlantic Oceans at depths of from 637 to 2,239 metres.
The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument is a marine national monument of the United States off the coast of New England, on the seaward edge of Georges Bank. It was created by President Barack Obama on September 15, 2016, as the first U.S. marine national monument in the Atlantic Ocean.
Horizon Guyot is a presumably Cretaceous guyot (tablemount) in the Mid-Pacific Mountains, Pacific Ocean. It is an elongated ridge, over 300 kilometres (190 mi) long and 4.3 kilometres (2.7 mi) high, that stretches in a northeast–southwest direction and has two flat tops; it rises to a minimum depth of 1,443 metres (4,730 ft). The Mid-Pacific Mountains lie west of Hawaii and northeast of the Line Islands.
Vlinder Guyot is a guyot in the Western Pacific Ocean. It rises to a depth of 1,500 metres (4,900 ft) and has a flat top covering an area of 40 by 50 kilometres. On top of this flat top lie some volcanic cones, one of which rises to a depth of 551 metres (1,808 ft) below sea level. Vlinder Guyot has noticeable rift zones, including an older and lower volcano to the northwest and Oma Vlinder seamount south.
