City-size seamount triple the height of world's tallest building discovered via gravitational anomalies
By Harry Baker published about 23 hours ago
Researchers found and mapped four seamounts in the deep sea off the coast of Peru and Chile. The tallest of these new peaks rises around 1.5 miles above the seafloor.
A multicolor sonar map of a large seamount
The tallest of the newly discovered seamounts is more than 8,000 feet tall. (Image credit: Schmidt Ocean Institute)
Researchers have discovered four gigantic seamounts towering above the seafloor surrounding South America after detecting "gravitational anomalies" given off by the massive underwater mountains. The tallest rises more than 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) from the seafloor, making it three times taller than the world's tallest building.
Scientists aboard the Schmidt Ocean Institute's Falkor (too) research vessel recently discovered and mapped the quartet of seamounts in the deep sea between 286 and 373 miles (460 and 600 km) off the coast of Peru and Chile during an expedition through the East Pacific from Costa Rica to Chile.
The three Peruvian peaks measured 5,220 feet (1,591 meters), 5,459 feet (1,644 m) and 6,145 feet (1,873 m) tall respectively. But the largest seamount, found off Chile, rises 8,796 feet (2,681 m) above the ocean's bottom, bringing it to within a mile of the surface. For comparison, the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, is 2,716 feet (828 m) tall, while the Empire State Building stands at 1,250 feet (380 m).
The tallest peak also has a surface area of around 175 square miles (450 square km), which is around the same size as New Orleans.
These giant underwater peaks, which are all extinct volcanoes, are so massive that they create subtle changes in the height of the ocean's surface, and these so-called gravitational anomalies can be detected by satellites. In this case, the ocean's surface bulges right above the peaks.
More:
https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/rivers-oceans/city-size-seamount-triple-the-height-of-worlds-tallest-building-discovered-via-gravitational-anomalies
