Just another bunch of old volcanoes we didn’t know about, found off Tasmania

A few weeks ago a CSIRO boat mapped out a string of 3 kilometer high seamounts that no one knew about. They are 400km east of Tasmania and sit in water 5 km deep (so no one is going to run into them, even in a military sub.)

But remember, even though 80% of the ocean floor is unmapped, and we haven’t even logged, named or noticed thousands of volcanoes, we *know* that they are not heating the ocean, changing ocean currents, or affecting our climate. Skillless models tell us so. (Pay us your money).

h/t Thanks to Tallbloke

Denise Chow, Euronews

“We’ve only mapped a tiny fraction of the ocean floor,” said Andrew Fisher, a marine geologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who was not involved in the new discovery. “We have more detailed maps of Mars, Venus and the moon than we do of the seafloor. Other planetary bodies can be mapped in high resolution with satellites, but on Earth, the water layer gets in the way. The only way is to go out with ships.”

More than 80 percent of the ocean remains unmapped and unexplored, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That’s because it’s difficult and time consuming to create detailed seafloor maps. Sonar-equipped research vessels like the Investigator must make a series of passes over an area in a process Fisher likened to mowing a lawn.

The original press release, October 8, 2018.

The lost world was uncovered during detailed seafloor mapping by CSIRO research vessel Investigator while on a 25-day research voyage led by scientists from the Australian National University (ANU).

The mapping has revealed, for the first time, a diverse chain of volcanic seamounts located in deep water about 400km east of Tasmania. The seamounts tower up to 3000m from the surrounding seafloor but the highest peaks are still far beneath the waves, at nearly 2000m below the surface.

“Our multibeam mapping has revealed in vibrant detail, for the first time, a chain of volcanic seamounts rising up from an abyssal plain about 5000m deep, [says Dr Tara Martin from the CSIRO].

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These new huge seamounts are not the same as another bunch of 123 seamounts discovered South of Tasmania. Those ones were made 55 million years ago by a hot plume that is currently busy working under Mount Erebus in Antarctica.

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