Four new underwater mountains have been discovered in the high seas off the west coast of South and Central America.
鈥淭he tallest is over one-and-a-half miles in height, and we didn鈥檛 really know it was there,鈥� says听听at the Schmidt Ocean Institute in California.
Virmani鈥檚 team on the exploration vessel听came across the seamounts in January, while navigating from Costa Rica to Chile for an unrelated expedition. The satellites they were using to plan the travel route spotted some gravity anomalies 鈥� areas in the ocean where the gravitational pull was a little stronger than usual because of the possible presence of excess mass.
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Using a special kind of sonar, the researchers were able to work out the details: they identified four seamounts 鈥� underwater mountains 鈥� ranging in height from about 1591 to 2681 metres.
鈥淚 was thinking one, maybe two, but to find four is incredible,鈥� says Virmani. 鈥淚t does show how much we don鈥檛 know of what鈥檚 out there.鈥�
Seamounts are hotspots of deep-sea biodiversity, with their slopes offering a home for coral reefs and a variety of marine animals that thrive on rocky surfaces rather than the gloopy sediment that blankets the deep seafloor, says at the University of Plymouth in the UK.听 鈥淪eamounts have a really important role in the ocean,鈥� she says. 鈥淭hey are often oases of life.鈥�
鈥淓very seamount has its own patterns of life,鈥� says听 at the University of Southampton, UK. 鈥淢apping those patterns is the next step.鈥�
杏吧原创s on the Schmidt Ocean Institute鈥檚 research vessels听Falkor听and听Falkor (too) have already discovered 29 seamounts. Data suggests there are between 45,000 and still to be found because most of the seafloor that lies beneath the open ocean remains unmapped. 鈥淭he fact that we don鈥檛 have maps of our seafloor is crazy,鈥� says Howell.
