Week 4 - Phase 2 Intro and The Geology of Seamounts

What's my plan?

I started off phase 2 with a theme that I wanted to take forward and do some in-depth research on. Week 4 and 5 would be all about visualizing, reading and researching into Seamounts and the life around it. I would also try to get in touch with Southampton Oceanography society and the research team to get some insight into the world of underwater.

Things I wanna look into regarding my theme:

Geology of undersea Mountains

Deep ocean currents and their relationship with the Seamounts

Deep Sea corals and how they grow all around seamounts

Life around Seamounts

Conservation of Seamounts

---

Geology of Seamounts

Seamounts are large submarine volcanic mountains rising at least 1,000 meters above the surrounding deep-sea floor. Smaller seamounts are called sea Knolls and flat-topped seamounts are called Guyots. Seamounts tend to be elliptical possibly because the lavas are extruded from linear rifts in the seafloor.

The Chaotic and Vibrant Seafloor Dr.Antony Joseph, in Investigating Seafloors and Oceans, 2017

As submarine lava flows, it forms oceanic basalt that is dredged from the seamounts, whereas, the summit and flanks of seamounts are generally covered with a thin layer of marine sediment. They are extremely abundant and occur in all major ocean basins. Thousands of seamounts have been reported from the south Pacific ocean basin alone. A linear cluster of seamounts may result when several are fed by lava extruded from a single linear rift. Most Pacific seamounts occur in linear clusters or elongate groups of 10 to 100.

Article - Geology of Seamounts

Various Articles and writings on Seamounts

Thoughts:

I wanted to understand how seamounts were formed and why they are so valuable to us so I took a more technical approach to start off my research by looking into the geology of undersea mountains. I looked into some articles and books to understand the structure and its history. After looking into it I discovered that seamounts are not just mountains underwater, but they are a source of rich minerals for the life underwater. It also provides a solid structure which is extremely important as things like corals need a structure to grow on and they flourish around seamounts. Another thing I came across was how us humans are exploiting this by doing deep sea mining and deep sea fishing around seamounts because its packed with rich minerals that also attracts and supports sea life.

Article - Will mining ruin them?

---