The New England Seamounts is a chain of over twenty underwater extinct volcanic mountains known as

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. This chain is located off the coast of

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett language, Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut assachusett writing systems, məhswatʃəwiːsət'' English: , ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is the most populous U.S. state, state in the New England ...

in the

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 ...

and extends over 1,000 km from the edge of

Georges Bank Georges Bank (formerly known as St. Georges Bank) is a large elevated area of the sea floor between Cape Cod, Massachusetts (United States), and Cape Sable Island, Nova Scotia (Canada). It separates the Gulf of Maine from the Atlantic Ocean. Th ...

. Many of the peaks of these mountains rise over 4,000 m from the

seabed The seabed (also known as the seafloor, sea floor, ocean floor, and ocean bottom) is the bottom of the ocean. All floors of the ocean are known as 'seabeds'. The structure of the seabed of the global ocean is governed by plate tectonics. Most of ...

. The New England Seamounts chain is the longest such chain in the North Atlantic and is home to a diverse range of

deep sea The deep sea is broadly defined as the ocean depth where light begins to fade, at an approximate depth of 200 metres (656 feet) or the point of transition from continental shelves to continental slopes. Conditions within the deep sea are a combin ...

fauna. Scientists have visited the chain on various occasions to survey the geologic makeup and biota of the region. The chain is part of the

Great Meteor hotspot track The New England hotspot, also referred to as the Great Meteor hotspot and sometimes the Monteregian hotspot, is a volcanic hotspot in the North Atlantic Ocean. It created the Monteregian Hills intrusions in Montreal and Montérégie, the White ...

and was formed by the movement of 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 ...

over the

New England hotspot The New England hotspot, also referred to as the Great Meteor hotspot and sometimes the Monteregian hotspot, is a volcanic hotspot in the North Atlantic Ocean. It created the Monteregian Hills intrusions in Montreal and Montérégie, the White ...

. The oldest volcanoes that were formed by the same hotspot are northwest of

Hudson Bay Hudson Bay ( crj, text=ᐐᓂᐯᒄ, translit=Wînipekw; crl, text=ᐐᓂᐹᒄ, translit=Wînipâkw; iu, text=ᑲᖏᖅᓱᐊᓗᒃ ᐃᓗᐊ, translit=Kangiqsualuk ilua or iu, text=ᑕᓯᐅᔭᕐᔪᐊᖅ, translit=Tasiujarjuaq; french: b ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. Part of the seamount chain is protected by

Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument is a marine national monument of the United States off the coast of New England, on the seaward edge of Georges Bank. It was created by President Barack Obama on September 15, 2016, as ...

. A variety of different names have been used to refer to this seamount range, including the Kelvin Seamounts, Kelvin Seamount Group, Kelvin Banks, New England Seamount Chain and the Bermuda-New England Seamount Arc (including the

Bermuda Pedestal The Bermuda Pedestal is an oval geological feature in the northern Atlantic Ocean containing the topographic highs of the Bermuda Platform, the Plantagenet (Argus) Bank, and the Challenger Bank. The pedestal is long and wide at the 100 fathom li ...

, which contains the archipelago of

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and Argus and Challenger Banks, and

Bowditch Seamount Bowditch may refer to: Books *''Bowditch's American Practical Navigator'', an encyclopedia of navigation People *Ben Bowditch (born 1984), English footballer *Brian Bowditch (born 1961), British mathematician *Charles Pickering Bowditch (1842 – ...

, and other seamounts intervening roughly between Bermuda and

Nashville Seamount Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...

Formation

The New England hotspot, also referred to as the Great Meteor hotspot, formed the White Mountains 124 to 100 million years ago when the

North American continent North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

was directly over the zone. As the continent drifted to the west, the hotspot gradually moved offshore. On a southeasterly course, the hotspot formed

Bear Seamount The Bear Seamount is a guyot or flat-topped underwater volcano in the Atlantic Ocean. It is the oldest of the New England Seamounts, which was active more than 100 million years ago. It was formed when the North American Plate moved over the New ...

, the oldest seamount in the chain, about 100 to 103 million years ago. Over the course of millions of years, the hotspot continued to create the other seamounts in the chain, culminating about 83 million years ago with the creation of the

. As the Atlantic Ocean continued to

spread Spread may refer to: Places * Spread, West Virginia Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Spread'' (film), a 2009 film. * ''$pread'', a quarterly magazine by and for sex workers * "Spread", a song by OutKast from their 2003 album ''Speakerboxxx/T ...

, the hotspot eventually "travelled" further east, forming the

Great Meteor Seamount The Great Meteor Seamount, also called the Great Meteor Tablemount, is a guyot and the largest seamount in the North Atlantic with a volume of . It is one of the Seewarte Seamounts, rooted on a large terrace located south of the Azores Plateau. ...

south of the

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, where it is located today. The New England Seamounts were once at or above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardised g ...

. As time passed, however, and the chain moved farther away from the New England hotspot, the crust cooled and contracted, and the chain sank into the ocean. All the peaks are now a kilometer or more below the surface.

Biota

The seamount chain provides a unique habitat for

marine creatures.

Coral Corals are marine invertebrates within the class Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact colonies of many identical individual polyps. Coral species include the important reef builders that inhabit tropical oceans and sec ...

formations grow on the rocky outcrops, resembling underwater forests that provide shelter for

invertebrate 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 ...

s and fish. Due to the expense and difficulties of studying the deep ocean, little was known of the creatures that inhabited the New England Seamounts. In fact, before recent expeditions, there was only one known coral species in the entire chain. Since 2000, marine biologists, during various exploratory studies, have caught and classified over 203 species of fish and 214 species of invertebrates on the

. This range of diversity suggests that other seamounts may harbour more unknown macro-organisms. During one survey, a species of

cutthroat eel Cutthroat eels are a family, Synaphobranchidae, of eels, the only members of the suborder Synaphobranchoidei. They are found worldwide in temperate and tropical seas. Cutthroat eels range from in length. They are bottom-dwelling fish, found in ...

, believed to be found only near Australia, was identified. Corals,

echinoderm An echinoderm () is any member of the phylum Echinodermata (). The adults are recognisable by their (usually five-point) radial symmetry, and include starfish, brittle stars, sea urchins, sand dollars, and sea cucumbers, as well as the sea ...

s, and

crustacean 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 ...

s make up a large portion of the creatures found on the seamount. These organisms act as

indicator species A bioindicator is any species (an indicator species) or group of species whose function, population, or status can reveal the qualitative status of the environment. The most common indicator species are animals. For example, copepods and other sma ...

, identifying potential problems in the ecosystem.

Seamounts

The New England Seamounts include: *Allegheny Seamount *Asterias Seamount *Balanus Seamount *

(National Monument) *Buell Seamount *Gerda Seamount *Gilliss Seamount *Gosnold Seamount (guyot) *Gregg Seamount (guyot) *Hodgson Seamount *Kelvin Seamount (guyot) *Kiwi Seamount *Manning Seamount *Michael Seamount *Mytilus Seamount (National Monument) *Nashville Seamount *Panulirus Seamount *Picket Seamount *Physalia Seamount (National Monument) *Rehoboth Seamount (guyot) *Retriever Seamount (National Monument) *San Pablo Seamount *Sheldrake Seamount *Vogel Seamount (guyot)

References

External links

*{{cite cgndb, id=MADIP, title=New England Seamount Chain, accessdate=2017-02-20
Overview of Studies of NW Atlantic Seamounts for the ISA.
International Seabed Authority. New England Hotspot volcanoes Guyots Seamounts of the Atlantic Ocean Seamount chains Hotspot tracks

Formation

Biota

Seamounts

See also

References

External links