Orca Seamount

Orca Seamount is a seamount (underwater volcano) near King George Island in Antarctica, in the Bransfield Strait. While it is inactive, last volcanic activity at Orca Seamount is judged to have occurred in the recent past as there are temperature anomalies in the seawater around at the seamount.[1] Thermophilic and hyperthermophilic microorganisms organism have been found at the seamount.[1]

Orca Seamount
Location of Orca Seamount
Bathemetric mapping of the seamount, mapped with the swath sonar system of RV Polarstern during cruise ANT-XI/3.
Height~500 m
Location
LocationNear King George Island, Antarctica
Coordinates62°26′00″S 58°24′00″W
Geology
TypeUnderwater volcano (Seamount)

The crater rim is about 3 km wide and about 500 m above the ocean floor.[2]

The seamount was first named by Professor O. González-Ferrán of Chile in 1987, after the orca (killer whale) often sighted in these waters.[3][4] It was mapped and studied by the ship RV Polarstern during an Antarctic cruise (number ANT-XI/3) in 2005.[5] The variant name of Viehoff Seamount (approved in 6/95 ACUF 263) was named for Dr. Thomas Viehoff, a remote sensing specialist in marine sciences. Name proposed by Dr. G.B. Udintsev, Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry (VIG).[6]

Geology

The submarine volcano is a Pleistocene-Recent shield volcano within the Bransfield Basin. The volcano has a base diameter of 20 km, and a height of 1000 m.[7]


References
  1. Rodrigo, Cristian; Blamey, Jenny M.; Huhn, Oliver; Provost, Christine (2018). "Is there an active hydrothermal flux from the orca seamount in the Bransfield Strait, antarctica?". Andean Geology. 45 (3): 344. doi:10.5027/andgeov45n3-3086.
  2. Hatzky, Jörn (2005): The Orca Seamount Region, Antarctica (Sect. 5.5.2). In: Peter C. Wille (ed.), Sound Images of the Ocean in Research and Monitoring, Springer-Verlag Berlin.
  3. "Name Details – Orca Seamount". Catalogue of Antarctic Names. Australian Antarctic Data Centre. Retrieved 2010-03-29.
  4. "GEBCO Gazetteer of Geographic Names of Undersea Features" (PDF). GEBCO Sub-Committee on Undersea Feature Names (SCUFN). January 2010. p. 332. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-03-03. Retrieved 2010-03-29.
  5. Vulcano bransfield-strait hg.png
  6. "Orca Seamount". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey. Retrieved 2018-08-11.
  7. Gonzalez-Ferran, O. (1991). Thomson, M.R.A.; Crame, J.A.; Thomson, J.W. (eds.). The Bransfield rift and its active volcanism, in Geological Evolution of Antarctica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 508–509. ISBN 9780521372664.


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