The Corner Rise Seamounts are a chain of extinct

submarine volcano Submarine volcanoes are underwater vents or fissures in the Earth's surface from which magma can erupt. Many submarine volcanoes are located near areas of tectonic plate formation, known as mid-ocean ridges. The volcanoes at mid-ocean ridges ...

es in the northern

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

east of the

New England Seamounts The New England Seamounts is a chain of over twenty underwater extinct volcanic mountains known as seamounts. This chain is located off the coast of Massachusetts in the Atlantic Ocean and extends over 1,000 km from the edge of Georges Ban ...

. Both it and the New England Seamounts were formed when the

North American Plate The North American Plate is a tectonic plate covering most of North America, Cuba, the Bahamas, extreme northeastern Asia, and parts of Iceland and the Azores. With an area of , it is the Earth's second largest tectonic plate, behind the Pacific ...

moved over the Great Meteor hotspot 75 million years ago. It is the shallowest seamount in New England, with some of its nineteen highest peaks only 800–900 m deep. Like most

seamount A seamount is a large geologic landform that rises from the ocean floor that does not reach to the water's surface (sea level), and thus is not an island, islet or cliff-rock. Seamounts are typically formed from extinct volcanoes that rise abru ...

s, they attract fish. Over 175 species have been found there, including

splendid alfonsino The splendid alfonsino (''Beryx splendens'') is an alfonsino of the genus ''Beryx'', found around the world at depths between , usually between . Although its most common size is , it can reach lengths of up to . It is known as'' kinmedai'' (金� ...

, black cardinal fish,

black scabbardfish The black scabbardfish (''Aphanopus carbo'') is a bathypelagic cutlassfish of the family Trichiuridae found in the Atlantic Ocean between latitudes 69°N and 27°N at depths between . Its length is up to , but it reaches maturity around . D ...

, and

wreckfish The wreckfish are a family, Polyprionidae in the suborder Percoidei of the order Perciformes. They are deep-water marine fish and can be found on the ocean bottom, where they inhabit caves and shipwrecks (thus their common name). Their scienti ...

. Trawl fishing during the 1970s and 1980s resulted in approximately 20,000 tons of fish being harvested. As a result, the seamounts were closed to demersal fishing (collecting fish near the bottom of the ocean, as opposed to pelagic fishing, collecting fish near the surface) beginning 1 January 1997. The original ban was supposed to be lifted 31 December 2010, but was extended until 31 December 2020. Almost a decade into the ban, a 2005

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI, acronym pronounced ) is a private, nonprofit research and higher education facility dedicated to the study of marine science and engineering. Established in 1930 in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, it i ...

survey found that two of the peaks, Kükenthal and Yakutat, had been stripped bare of both corals and bottom-dwelling animals. However the survey, which covered both the Corner Rise and New England Seamounts, found 270 species of

invertebrates Invertebrates are a paraphyletic group of animals that neither possess nor develop a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''backbone'' or ''spine''), derived from the notochord. This is a grouping including all animals apart from the chordate ...

and

crustaceans Crustaceans (Crustacea, ) form a large, diverse arthropod taxon which includes such animals as decapods, seed shrimp, branchiopods, fish lice, krill, remipedes, isopods, barnacles, copepods, amphipods and mantis shrimp. The crustacean group ...

, including 70 species unique to the Corner Rise Seamounts.

Seamounts

Seamounts within the Corner Rise Seamount chain include: * Bean Seamount * Caloosahatchee Seamount with ** Milne-Edwards Peak ** Verrill Peak * Castle Rock Seamount * Corner Seamount with ** Goode Peak ** Kukenthal Peak * Justus Seamount * MacGregor Seamount * Rockaway Seamount * Yakutat Seamount

References

External links

* * {{cite web, title=Image of New England and Corner Rise Seamounts, url=http://www.gulfofmaine-census.org/wp-content/images/ne_seamount.jpg, publisher=Gulf of Maine Census, accessdate=19 August 2015 Seamounts of the Atlantic Ocean Hotspot volcanoes Extinct volcanoes Seamount chains