Pacific Seamounts

The Pacific Ocean contains the vast majority of the world's seamounts.  In part, this is because the Pacific is much larger than the other ocean basins.  It is also a consequence of the fact that the tectonic plates forming the Pacific basin are moving considerably faster than the plates forming the other ocean basins. Hotspots associated with faster moving plates produce more seamounts than hotspots underlying slow moving plates.   Fast spreading midocean ridges like the East Pacific Rise (EPR) are also associated with larger and more numerous near-axis seamounts than slow spreading ridges.  Each shaded relief image below shows color coded depth combined with a false illumination to highlight fine scale texture.  The large area maps are based on predicted bathymetry derived from a combination of altimetric satellite gravity and shipboard sonar measurements.  The more detailed images are derived from multibeam swath sonar depth measurements collected by research vessels.  The sonar swaths are superimposed on the smoother predicted bathymetry.  The less saturated, images use the same depth/color scale indicated on the color bar.  The more saturated images each use a different depth/color scale optimized for that seamount. 

These images were generated with Bill Haxby's GeoMapApp tool.