The Eratosthenes Seamount or Eratosthenes Tablemount is a
seamount
A seamount is a large submarine landform that rises from the ocean floor without reaching the water surface (sea level), and thus is not an island, islet, or cliff-rock. Seamounts are typically formed from extinct volcanoes that rise abruptly a ...
in the Eastern
Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern ...
, in the
Levantine basin about south of western
Cyprus
Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...
. Unlike most seamounts, it is a
carbonate platform
A carbonate platform is a Sedimentary rock, sedimentary body which possesses topographic relief, and is composed of Autochthon (geology), autochthonic calcareous deposits. Platform growth is mediated by Sessility (zoology), sessile organisms whose ...
, not a volcano.
It is a large, submerged
massif
A massif () is a principal mountain mass, such as a compact portion of a mountain range, containing one or more summits (e.g. France's Massif Central). In mountaineering literature, ''massif'' is frequently used to denote the main mass of an ...
, about . Its peak lies at the depth of and it rises above the surrounding seafloor, which is located at the depth of up to and is a part of the
Herodotus Abyssal Plain. It is one of the largest features on the Eastern Mediterranean seafloor.
In 2010 and 2012 the
Ocean Exploration Trust's vessel
EV Nautilus explored the seamount looking for shipwrecks. Three were found; two were
Ottoman vessels from the 19th century and the third was from the 4th century BC. Such seamounts are considered to be ideal for the preservation of shipwrecks because at depths of around the areas are not disturbed by
trawlers or by sediments coming off land.
Oceanography
The Cyprus eddy is a sustained
mesoscale eddy with a diameter about , regularly appearing above Eratosthenes Seamount. It was surveyed by oceanographic cruises notably in 1995, 2000, 2001 and 2009.
Geology
During the
Messinian crisis, as the sea level in the Mediterranean dropped by about , the seamount emerged.
See also
*
CenSeam
*
Ferdinandea
*
Eratosthenes (crater)
*
Malta Escarpment
*
Campi Flegrei del Mar di Sicilia
*
Palinuro Seamount
*
Calypso Deep
*
Hellenic Trench
*
Mediterranean Ridge
The Mediterranean Ridge is a wide ridge in the bed of the Mediterranean Sea, running along a rough quarter circle from Calabria, south of Crete, to the southwest corner of Turkey.
It is an accretionary wedge caused by the African Plate subduc ...
References
External links
* Mart, Yossi and Robertson, Alastair H. F. (1998).
Eratosthenes Seamount: an oceanographic yardstick recording the Late Mesozoic-Tertiary geological history of the Eastern Mediterranean', in Robertson, A.H.F., Emeis, K.-C., Richter, C., and Camerlenghi, A. (eds.), Proceedings of the Ocean Drilling Program, Scientific Results, Vol. 160, Chapter 52, 701–708.
* Kempler, Ditza (1998).
Eratosthenes Seamount: the possible spearhead of incipient continental collision in the Eastern Mediterranean', in Robertson, A.H.F., Emeis, K.-C., Richter, C., and Camerlenghi, A. (eds.), Proceedings of the Ocean Drilling Program, Scientific Results, Vol. 160, Chapter 53, 709–721.
Seamounts of the Mediterranean
Physical oceanography
Continental fragments
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