Kodiak Seamount

Kodiak Seamount

Summit depth 2,300 m (7,500 ft)
Location
Location North Pacific Ocean, 120 miles southeast of Kodiak Island
Country United States
Geology
Type Guyot
Volcanic arc/chain Kodiak-Bowie Seamount chain
Age of rock 24 million years

Kodiak Seamount is the oldest seamount in the Kodiak-Bowie Seamount chain, with an estimated age of 24 million years.[1] It lies at the northernmost end of the chain and its flat-topped summit is strewn with fault lines. Like the rest of the Kodiak-Bowie seamounts, it was formed by the Bowie hotspot.

Kodiak Seamount will eventually be destroyed by subduction by the Aleutian Trench once it is carried into the trench by the ongoing plate motion, although this will not fully occur for several million more years if the current rate of motion is maintained. Because of Kodiak Seamount's approach into the Aleutian Trench, it is literally cracking up under the stress.[2] Although Kodiak is the oldest extant seamount in the Kodiak-Bowie chain, the adjacent lower slope contains transverse scars indicating earlier subduction of seamounts.

See also

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Wednesday, December 23, 2009. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.