Satellite data reveals a large number of deep-sea mountains

[Life]

The find roughly doubles the number of known seamounts in Earth’s oceans


Ship-mounted sonar reveals how Kelvin Seamount, off the coast of Massachusetts, rises from the seafloor (purple and blue denote low elevation while red is high). A new mapping technique based on satellite data has found thousands of previously unknown undersea mountains.

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

The number of known mountains in Earth’s oceans has roughly doubled. Global satellite observations have revealed nearly 20,000 previously unknown seamounts, researchers report in the April Earth and Space Science.

www.sciencenews.org/article/satellite-data-unknown-oceans-sea-mountains

This revelation is interesting in view of the following:

www.colorado.edu/asmagazine/2021/11/03/underwater-mountains-help-push-carbon-atmosphere-oceanographers-find

blog.geogarage.com/2022/05/httpsblog.geogarage.com202204undersea-mountains-stir-up-currents.html.html?m=1

ocean-climate.org/en/awareness/the-deep-sea-a-key-player-to-be-protected-for-climate-and-ecosystems/

[Life]

The finding, reported earlier this month at the Ocean Sciences Meeting, could have broad implications. Deep waters, rather than remaining sequestered for hundreds or thousands of years, may return quickly—speeding climate change by releasing the carbon they store. The upwellings could also add to sea level rise in some locations. And the new picture could force oceanographers to rethink the behavior of past oceans, when the contours of the sea floor differed from today’s.

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Absolutely. This discovery will affect past climatic models.

WE keep finding something new and have to revisit our knowledge base.