Around 71% of Mother Earth’s surface is covered with water, and the oceans hold nearly 96.5% of all the planet’s water. Interestingly, 95% of this vast body of water is still unknown. Over the years, scientists have conducted search operations under the sea to explore the area. They have not only found unknown sea creatures, but also unfolded new stories. Scientists recently found a 20-million-year-old mountain, with four underwater volcanoes, near Antarctica. They have claimed that the underwater mountain range is lying around 13,100ft below the surface between Tasmania and Antarctica.

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), an Australian Government agency, sent a research team to the seafloor near Antarctica in 2023. They used CSIRO research vessel Investigator to conduct the operation in an area of 20,000sqkm between Antarctica and Tasmania. The CSIRO also used High Resolution Mapping to study the Antarctic circumpolar current – the strongest ocean current in the world – in order to better understand how it contributes to rising sea levels. In fact, the scientists were looking at how the current was leaking heat towards the continent.

Evidence of the existence of eight underwater volcanoes at a depth of 4,000mt was previously found in a certain area of the Southern Ocean. Now, the CSIRO has discovered four of the eight volcanoes, and the height of some of them is around 1,500mt.

CSIRO Geophysicist Dr Chris Yule has expressed delight at the discovery of the four volcanoes, saying: “Four of them are new discoveries, and we filled in details on two seamounts and a fault line ridge partially mapped on a previous voyage. We now know the ridge, just west of the survey area, drops into a valley over a 1,600 mature high cliff (5,249ft).” He has explained that the area is based near the tectonically active Macquarie Ridge (located 200 nautical miles west of Macquarie Island), and the mountains were likely formed 20 million years ago from the hotspot lying below the Earth’s mantle.

Meanwhile, Dr Benoit Legresy, the Chief Scientist involved in the voyage called FOCUS, has claimed that it is quite easy to satellite mapping oceans with the help of Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT). He further said that the increased emission of carbon-dioxide affects the ocean, as the amount of temperature increase because of Global Warming also spreads to the deep oceans. Hence, it is important to monitor ocean dynamics. According to Dr Legresy, the effects of ocean currents on the marine environment should be observed from those underwater volcanoes found on the ocean floor. He insisted: “The ocean has absorbed more than 90% of heat due to Global Warming and around 25% of human CO2 emissions, providing an enormous service as a climate shock absorber.” Dr Legresy added: “Knowing how to deal with human-induced Climate Change brings an urgency to tracking down the heat and cartoon pathways in the global climate system. We have been working in a gateway where heat is funnelled towards Antarctica, contributing to ice melt and sea level rise. We need to understand how this gate works, how much heat gets through and how this may change in the future.“

For her part, Dr Helen Phillips of the Australian Antarctic Programme Partnership at the University of Tasmania has stressed: “The Antarctic Circumpolar Current ‘feels’ the seafloor and the mountains in its path, and where it encounters barriers, like ridges or seamounts, ‘wiggles’ are created in the water flow that form eddies. Valleys and cliffs can also accelerate deep currents at the bottom of the ocean.” In a press release, she has mentioned: “Eddies are like the weather systems of the ocean, playing a major role in transporting heat and carbon from the upper ocean to deeper layers – a critical buffer against Global Warming. Knowledge of the depth and shape of the seafloor is crucial for us to quantify the influence of undersea mountains, hills and valleys on the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and the leaking of heat towards Antarctica.“

The discovery of these underwater mountains provides crucial insights into the behaviour of ocean currents and their impact on climate. However, researchers are of the opinion that it is difficult to predict whether the 20-million-year-old underwater volcanoes shall erupt or remain dormant forever.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das