Noroit Seamount 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 ...

in the

Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere, located south of the Gulf of Mexico and southwest of the Sargasso Sea. It is bounded by the Greater Antilles to the north from Cuba ...

, in the

Anegada Passage The Anegada Passage , also known as the Anegada Trough, is a strait in the Caribbean that separates the British Virgin Islands and the British ruled Sombrero Island of Anguilla, and connects the Caribbean and the Atlantic Ocean. It is 2300 m d ...

. It is also spelled Noroît Seamount after the French survey and research vessel RV ''Le Noroît'' () which was operated by

IFREMER The or Ifremer is an oceanographic institution in Brest, France. A state-run and funded scientific organization, it is France’s national integrated marine science research institute. Scope of works Ifremer focuses its research activities in ...

. It is also known as Noroit Knoll. Several research projects are conducted in vicinity of Noroit Seamount.

Geology

The seamount is a (relatively young) inactive

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 ...

, located on the boundary between the North American Plate and the Caribbean Plate.Earthquake, Landslide, and Tsunami Hazards in the Northeastern Caribbean—Insights from a 2013 E/V Nautilus Expedition

USGS The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an government agency, agency of the United States Department of the Interior, U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geograp ...

Flora and fauna

Noroît Seamount's

marine habitats A marine habitat is a habitat that supports marine life. Marine life depends in some way on the saltwater that is in the sea (the term ''marine'' comes from the Latin ''mare'', meaning sea or ocean). A habitat is an ecological or environmen ...

are well researched.Demopoulos, A. W.; Bourque, J. R.; Cordes, E. E.; Chaytor, J. D.; Quattrini,
Benthic Macrofaunal Communities at Newly Explored Caribbean Seamounts in the Greater/Lesser Antilles Transition Zone and a Comparison to Nearby Habitats

American Geophysical Union The American Geophysical Union (AGU) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization of Earth, Atmospheric science, atmospheric, Oceanography, ocean, Hydrology, hydrologic, Astronomy, space, and Planetary science, planetary scientists and enthusiasts that ...

, Ocean Sciences Meeting 2016, abstract #ME31B-01 Investigations by the research vessel EV ''Nautilus'' in 2014 found a variety of

stony corals Scleractinia, also called stony corals or hard corals, are marine animals in the phylum Cnidaria that build themselves a hard skeleton. The individual animals are known as polyps and have a cylindrical body crowned by an oral disc in which a mo ...

('' scleractinians''),

octocorals Octocorallia, along with Hexacorallia, is one of the two extant classes of Anthozoa. It comprises over 3,000 species of marine and brackish animals consisting of colonial polyps with 8-fold symmetry, commonly referred informally as "soft cora ...

, and

sponges 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 ar ...

./ E/V Nautilus: Seamounts of Anegada Passage 2014. Mission Plan.

NOAA The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA ) is an American scientific and regulatory agency charged with forecasting weather, monitoring oceanic and atmospheric conditions, charting the seas, conducting deep-sea exploratio ...

Corals created habitat for

brittle stars Brittle stars, serpent stars, or ophiuroids (; ; referring to the serpent-like arms of the brittle star) are echinoderms in the class Ophiuroidea, closely related to starfish. They crawl across the sea floor using their flexible arms for locomot ...

squat lobster Squat lobsters are dorsoventrally flattened crustaceans with long tails held curled beneath the cephalothorax. They are found in the two superfamilies Galatheoidea and Chirostyloidea, which form part of the decapod infraorder Anomura, alongs ...

s and

sea snails Sea snails are slow-moving marine gastropod molluscs, usually with visible external shells, such as whelk or abalone. They share the taxonomic class Gastropoda with slugs, which are distinguished from snails primarily by the absence of a visibl ...

. In the sea depth there are variety of fish — Acanthonus armatus, Bathypterois phenax,

Bembrops ''Bembrops'' is a genus of ray-finned fish, it is the type genus of the family Bembropidae. Species The following species are classified as members of the genus ''Bembrops'': * '' Bembrops anatirostris'' Ginsburg, 1955 * '' Bembrops cadenati' ...

, Conger esculentus,

Coryphaenoides ''Coryphaenoides'' is a genus of rattails which is found in all oceans of the world. They are found in deep waters and ''C. yaquinae'', recorded to , is the only member in the family known from the hadal zone. The generic name means "similar to ...

, Hexanchus griseus, Lepidion, Luciobrotula corethromycter, and Polymixia lowei.Polymixia lowei, 527-810 m Noroit Seamount, Caribbean.
World Register of Deep-Sea Species (WoRDSS)

References

{{Reflist Seamounts of the Caribbean Extinct volcanoes of North America