March 28, 2021: Deep Discoverer Explores
Image courtesy of the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, Exploring Puerto Rico’s Seamounts, Trenches, and Troughs. Download larger version (jpg, 1.5 MB).
Remotely operated vehicle Deep Discoverer images a series of rippled bedforms during the Oceano Profundo 2015: Exploring Puerto Rico’s Seamounts, Trenches, and Troughs expedition. The bedforms were seen while exploring Septentrional Fault, which extends from east of Hispaniola to Mona Seamount/Block. This is a major strike slip fault (a type of fault where two pieces of Earth’s crust slide past each other) that could potentially be the source of a large earthquake. A curious feature of the Septentrional Fault is that it appears to end in an approximately 1,000-meter (3,280-foot) deep hole just west of Mona Canyon (unusual because faults do not typically terminate in this way).
From: Ecology and Geology of the Mona Passage Region – The View from D2 and Seirios.