Satellites detect 'thousands' of new ocean-bottom mountains
It is not every day you can announce the discovery of thousands of new mountains on Earth, but that is what a US-European research team has done. What is more, these peaks are all at least 1.5km high. The reason they have gone unrecognised until now is because they are at the bottom of the ocean. Dave Sandwell and colleagues used radar satellites to discern the mountains' presence under water and report their findings in Science Magazine. Read more
Scripps Research Vessel Discovering Mammoth Undersea Mountains
In the latest evidence of the vastness remaining to be explored in the world's oceans, scientists aboard Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego's research vessel Melville are mapping a series of colossal and previously uncharted undersea mountains in remote areas of the South Atlantic Ocean. With the largest seamount rising more than 14,700 feet from the seafloor - higher than California's Mount Whitney, the tallest mountain in the contiguous United States - the mountains had been known from satellite data but never before charted at sea. The seamounts are located in the South Atlantic Ocean approximately 1,200 miles southwest of Cape Town, South Africa. (latitude 42°S, longitude 00°E). Read more