Posted on 04/03/2023 5:22:42 AM PDT by Red Badger
After surveying 45,000 square kilometers of once mysterious ocean floor around Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, the uncrewed sailing drone Surveyor moved far to the south, discovering a previously unknown seamount within 200 miles of the NorCal coast.
The safety-orange sailing ship is no stranger to adventure; it gathered carbon data from the Gulf Stream, mapped the seafloor from San Francisco to Hawaii, and weathered the 120-mph winds and 50-foot waves of Hurricane Sam.
The seamount is the slumbering remains of an undersea volcano; these watery mountains were once considered little more than navigational hazards for submarines until scientists uncovered the richness of the sea life they support, NOAA explains.
Studying them not only helps us understand current marine life, but also the physical processes of the ocean, Saildrone said in a release. The seamount was found 184 nautical miles from Cape Mendocino, the Sacramento Bee reported, and it towers 3,200 feet above the seafloor, with about 1,200 feet of Pacific between its crowning crater and the surface.
That means it stands outside of the usual area for California seamounts, expanding their known range, NOAA Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute manager Aurora Elmore told SFGATE.
The newly-discovered seamount as mapped by Saildrone Surveyor. Saildrone/NOAA
And, Elmore noted, that crater rests atop an unusual shape. “Typically seamounts have sloped sides, like Mount Fuji,” she said. “But what’s interesting about this one is that it’s really steep. It rises from the bottom of the seafloor with a tower shape.”
The Saildrone team’s first impression was that it looked like an enormous Bundt cake, lead surveyor Neah Baechler told the Bee: “One side of the top rim is higher than the other, forming a gradual summit. … The top is slightly bulbous, due to variability in slope.”
Baechler told SFGATE that a Bundt shape isn’t unusual per se, but the sheer size of it is, with most similarly-shaped features not rising to the heights required of a seamount.
Elmore theorized that the unusual shape may be because the seamount — which has yet to be named — was formed in volcanic activity that was super hot and super quick, or it could have developed its steep sides by a piling on of marine snow that sharpened the slopes.
Or, as Elmore put it: “Millennia of fish poop.”
Underwater alien spaceship base?
🤪
Bear in mind that there is no such thing as an ‘extinct’ volcano.............................
“Theorized” = I’M JUST GUESSING
That has to be one of the most perfectly formed volcano cones ever seen. Too perfect in fact.
Joe Bastardi’s thesis - much of the ocean’s warming comes from ocean/sea bed volcanos and has nothing to do with the BS the global warming crowd peddles. An extension of his theory is that most of the planet’s weather is driven by the temperatures of the oceans.
if its a counter weight well id assume it should be on the windward side of the sail not the downwind side. if its a wind grab(like some auto pilots for sail boats concept) that seems inefficient.
sailing all my life and now in my elders years content with an occasional kiteboarding session(see profile) my understanding of wind propulsion is a notch or 2 above most...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcoyAOqxwOk
It’s 3200 feet tall and 1200 feet under the surface................
I love his theory. Even if only partially right it explains a lot.
Mount Biden!
Trim tab and all.
Go read the article about the Saildrone Surveyor. It is really interesting and a lot bigger than I thought.
Post #10......................
Paging Tommy Lee Jones...
But I thought that terrestrial science was ‘settled’? /s
Everything is ‘settled’...... until it isn’t....................
It’s protected from currents, weather, plants and animals, formed under pressure, and has a much more uniform material (instead of layers of strata, mud, etc).
So it’s much more likely to form (and stay) in a uniform manner.
Not according to our ‘lords’ and their followers...
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