September 15, 2021: Seamount Bathymetry
Image courtesy of NOAA Ocean Exploration, Mountains in the Deep: Exploring the Central Pacific Basin. Download larger version (jpg, 255 KB).
During the Mountains in the Deep: Exploring the Central Pacific Basin expedition, the NOAA Ocean Exploration mapping team collected multibeam bathymetry on this seamount that is nearly 4,200 meters (~13,800-feet) high. They dubbed the seamount "Kahalewai" after Carl Kahalewai, who was one of the initial colonists of the islands of Howland, Baker, and Jarvis; along with several other Hawaiians, Kahalewai’s successful year‐long occupation of the islands enabled President Roosevelt to issue Executive Order 7368 on May 13, 1936, proclaiming that the islands of Howland, Baker, and Jarvis were under the jurisdiction of the United States.
This seamount turned out to rise about 1,000 meters (3,000 feet) higher from the abyssal plain than what was expected from existing altimetry data. This discovery is another reminder about the importance of high-resolution bathymetric mapping. We have higher-resolution maps of the surface of Mars than we do of the underwater surface of our own planet. Data like these fill large gaps in our knowledge and give us a better understanding of the world we live in.