Iatlantic Logo Hybrid
  • Our Work
    • Work Packages
    • Study areas
    • Expeditions
    • Science to policy
    • Innovation & Exploitation
    • Deliverables
    • Publications
    • iAtlantic GeoNode
    • iMirabilis2 Expedition
  • Our Team
    • Consortium
    • Steering Committee
    • iAtlantic Fellows
    • Advisory Board
    • Science Council
  • News
  • Events
    • Webinar archive
    • iAtlantic GA 2023
    • iAtlantic Annual Meetings
    • iAtlantic Workshops
    • iMirabilis2 Expedition
  • Resources
  • Contact
Menu
  • Our Work
    • Work Packages
    • Study areas
    • Expeditions
    • Science to policy
    • Innovation & Exploitation
    • Deliverables
    • Publications
    • iAtlantic GeoNode
    • iMirabilis2 Expedition
  • Our Team
    • Consortium
    • Steering Committee
    • iAtlantic Fellows
    • Advisory Board
    • Science Council
  • News
  • Events
    • Webinar archive
    • iAtlantic GA 2023
    • iAtlantic Annual Meetings
    • iAtlantic Workshops
    • iMirabilis2 Expedition
  • Resources
  • Contact
Login
Search
Close this search box.

New seamount revealed in the Azores

  • 5 March 2020
  • Back

Portuguese seafloor mapping campaign reveals a new seamount in the Azores

The seas around the Azores undoubtedly still have secrets to reveal to the scientific community, but no-one expected one of those secrets to be a shallow-water seamount! A new multibeam bathymetry survey conducted by the Portuguese Instituto Hidrográfico has discovered the small Diogo de Teive seamount, located close to one of the Azores islands, in an area that was previously thought to be much deeper water.

The new high-resolution multibeam data revealed a plateau flanked by gentle slopes, topped by an off-axis seamount with a spectacular small ridge-like peak reaching 585m water depth – topography that is much shallower than the 960m depth indicated by previous bathymetric datasets.

Diogo de Tieve bathymetry
Diogo de Teive Seamount: a) bathymetry before 2019; a) new bathymetry; c) 3D view based on new bathymetry.

The Diogo de Teive seamount, located just over 30 nautical miles from the island of Flores, was named after the captain that found the islands in western group of the Azores in 1452. A careful look at the local Vessel Monitoring System data gave no indication of fisheries activities in the vicinity of this seamount, which means that Diogo de Teive is probably the only near-natural area within fishable depths in the Azores. This seamount may therefore serve as a unique local native reference ecosystem that can act as a control and analogue site to inform the recovery trajectories of degraded habitats in the Azores. Diogo de Teive is now a priority area for scientific research in the Azores: careful examination of the deep-sea benthic communities inhabiting this seamount will give valuable insights into the levels of naturalness of this location.

This discovery was possible due to an extensive collaboration between the Instituto Hidrográfico, the Regional Government of the Azores and IMAR and Okeanos research centre at the University of the Azores. These three institutions are working together to make more surveys to map the seas around the Azores possible in the near future. No doubt more secrets will be revealed!

PrevPreviousMapping the tropical Atlantic seafloor
NextSystematic conservation planning tools inform deep sea area-based management in the AzoresNext

Share this

iAtlantic_logo
  • Our Work
  • Our Team
  • News
  • Events
  • Resources
  • Contact
  • Our Work
  • Our Team
  • News
  • Events
  • Resources
  • Contact
Facebook-fXlogoInstagram

© 2024 iAtlantic. All rights reserved.

EU

This project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 818123 (iAtlantic). This output reflects only the author’s view and the European Union cannot be held responsible for any use that may be  made of the information contained therein.