The Kodiak–Bowie Seamount chain, also called the Pratt–Welker Seamount chain and the Kodiak Seamounts is a

seamount A seamount is a large submarine landform that rises from the ocean floor without reaching the water surface (sea level), and thus is not an island, islet, or cliff-rock. Seamounts are typically formed from extinct volcanoes that rise abruptly a ...

chain in the southeastern

Gulf of Alaska The Gulf of Alaska ( Tlingit: ''Yéil T'ooch’'') is an arm of the Pacific Ocean defined by the curve of the southern coast of Alaska, stretching from the Alaska Peninsula and Kodiak Island in the west to the Alexander Archipelago in the ...

stretching from the

Aleutian Trench The Aleutian Trench (or Aleutian Trough) is an oceanic trench along a convergent plate boundary which runs along the southern coastline of Alaska and the Aleutian islands. The trench extends for from a triple junction in the west with the Ula ...

in the north to Bowie Seamount, the youngest volcano in the chain, which lies west of

Haida Gwaii Haida Gwaii (; / , literally "Islands of the Haida people"), previously known as the Queen Charlotte Islands, is an archipelago located between off the British Columbia Coast, northern Pacific coast in the Canadian province of British Columbia ...

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

.The Bowie Seamount
Retrieved on 2007-09-02 The oldest volcano in the chain is the Kodiak Seamount. Although the Kodiak Seamount is the oldest extant seamount in the Kodiak-Bowie chain, the adjacent lower slope contains transverse scars indicating earlier

subduction Subduction is a geological process in which the oceanic lithosphere and some continental lithosphere is recycled into the Earth's mantle at the convergent boundaries between tectonic plates. Where one tectonic plate converges with a second p ...

of seamounts. The Kodiak–Bowie Seamount chain is mostly

extinct volcano A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the Crust (geology), crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and volcanic gas, gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth ...

es that formed above the Bowie hotspot. This is a 100-to-150-km-wide morphological swell presumably of thickened hotspot generated crust, although there are no

seismic refraction Seismic refraction is a geophysical principle governed by Snell's Law of refraction. The seismic refraction method utilizes the refraction of seismic waves by rock or soil layers to characterize the subsurface geologic conditions and Structural ge ...

data across the swell to define crustal thickness. The crest of one such peak,

Patton Seamount Patton Seamount is a prominent seamount ( underwater volcano) in the Cobb–Eickelberg Seamount chain in the Gulf of Alaska. Located east of Kodiak Island and reaching to within of the ocean surface, Patton is one of the largest seamounts in t ...

originally formed off

Washington Washington most commonly refers to: * George Washington (1732–1799), the first president of the United States * Washington (state), a state in the Pacific Northwest of the United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A ...

state as a submerged volcano 33 million years ago. Over time, as the Pacific Plate moved steadily northwest, Patton Seamount has carried off the Bowie hotspot and into the Gulf of Alaska. New volcanoes were formed one after another over the hotspot, creating the Kodiak–Bowie Seamount chain. Explorations of the Kodiak–Bowie Seamount chain have shown that despite the fact that most of the seamounts were created by the Bowie hotspot, all are unique in their size, shape, and volcanic features. The seamounts teem with deep-sea

coral Corals are colonial marine invertebrates within the subphylum Anthozoa of the phylum Cnidaria. They typically form compact Colony (biology), colonies of many identical individual polyp (zoology), polyps. Coral species include the important Coral ...

sponge Sponges or sea sponges are primarily marine invertebrates of the animal phylum Porifera (; meaning 'pore bearer'), a basal clade and a sister taxon of the diploblasts. They are sessile filter feeders that are bound to the seabed, and a ...

s, and

fish A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...

. Recent expeditions to these seamounts using crewed submersibles and ROVs have discovered many marine species and have greatly expanded the knowledge of the range of deep sea corals in this region. For example, the Bowie Seamount is a biologically rich area with a dynamic and productive ecosystem. Because of this unique biological rich area, Bowie Seamount was declared a Pilot Marine Protected Area on December 8, 1998.Bowie Seamount Marine Protected Area
The Kodiak–Bowie seamount chain is at the northern

triple junction A triple junction is the point where the boundaries of three tectonic plates meet. At the triple junction each of the three boundaries will be one of three types – a ridge (R), trench (T) or transform fault (F) – and triple junctions can be ...

between the

Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the cont ...

North American North America is a continent in the Northern and Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Caribbean Sea, and to the sou ...

, and

Juan de Fuca Juan de Fuca (10 June 1536 23 July 1602)Greek Consulate of Vancouver,Greek Pioneers: Juan de Fuca. was a Greek sailor who served PhilipII of Spain. He is best known for his claim to have explored the Strait of Aniánnow known as the Strait o ...

plates. Available age determinations on Kodiak and Giacomini Seamounts give an approximate average rate of movement along the chain of per year.

Volcanoes

Volcanoes in the chain include: * Kodiak Seamount (24 m.y. old)NOAA Ocean Explorer: Gulf of Alaska 2004
Retrieved on 2007-09-02 * Giacomini Seamount (21 m.y. old) * Pratt Seamount (age unknown) * Welker Seamount (15 m.y. old) * Dickens Seamount (~4 m.y. old) * Denson Seamount (18 .m.y. old) * Durgin Seamount * Brown Seamount * Quinn Seamount * Surveyor Seamount * Peirce Seamount *

Hodgkins Seamount Hodgkins Seamount is a seamount in the Kodiak-Bowie Seamount chain, located south of Pierce Seamount and north of Bowie Seamount. It has apparently experienced two generically different episodes of volcanism, separated by about 12 million years ...

* Bowie Seamount (>0.7 m.y. old) * Tuzo Wilson Seamounts

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kodiak-Bowie Seamount chain Oceanography Volcanic belts Seamounts of the Pacific Ocean Seamount chains Guyots