The Oceanography Society (TOS) published a special issue of Oceanography magazine on the topic of “Mountains in the Sea” in March 2010 (http://tos.org/oceanography/issues/issue_archive/23_1.html).  Seamounts are a major frontier in ocean research with a diverse community of scientific, commercial, and societal stakeholders focusing on their exploration, study, and commercial use, and protection from over-exploitation. Scientific interests in seamounts range from their use as windows to Earth’s mantle to the understanding of the ecology of biological hot spots.  Profitable fisheries led to the need for protection and understanding of sustainable fisheries yields. This publication is the first truly integrated look at seamounts, where leaders of the geophysics, geochemistry, microbiology, marine ecology, oceanography, and fisheries communities present their current understanding of and pose new questions related to seamount science.  Five seamount experts from a variety of backgrounds—Hubert Staudigel (Scripps Institution of Oceanography), Anthony Koppers (Oregon State University), William Lavelle (NOAA, Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory), Tony Pitcher (University of British Columbia), and Tim Shank (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)—served as guest editors for this special issue, and compiled a comprehensive list of articles written by an interdisciplinary group of scientists.

Seamounts are significant to science and society. Their relevance is partly based on their large number, which amplifies even moderate effects to global relevance. Key issues are their rich fisheries, their role as biological hot spots, their microbial habitats, and the chemical fluxes involved in their production, weathering, and hydrothermal alteration. Geologists have used seamounts to explore the chemical evolution of the planet and their contribution to global geochemical fluxes, and to evaluate seamount geohazards. Oceanographers study the complex currents around seamounts and their impact on ocean mixing or local biological habitats.  Hence, seamounts are a key point of intersection among the biosphere, hydrosphere, and lithosphere.  This volume of articles explores this intersection by including a wide variety of articles from different disciplines that discuss the geological, volcanological, and geochemical evolution of seamounts, and seamounts’ distinct relationships with biology, geochemistry and oceanography, as well as implications for their potential geohazards.

Last Modified: 10/27/2010
Modified by: Jennifer G Ramarui