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      Improved bathymetry leads to 4000 new seamount predictions in the global ocean

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            Revision notes

             Corrected typo in author name

            Abstract

            Seamounts are important marine habitats that are hotpots of species diversity. Relatively shallow peaks, increased productivity and offshore locations make seamounts vulnerable to human impact and difficult to protect. Present estimates of seamount numbers vary from anywhere between 10000 to more than 60000. Seamount locations can be estimated by extracting conical shaped features from bathymetry grids. These predicted seamounts are a useful reference for marine researchers and can help direct exploratory surveys. However, these predictions are dependent on the quality of the surveys underpinning the bathymetry. Historically, quality has been patchy, but is improving as mapping efforts step up towards the target of complete seabed coverage by 2030. This study presents an update of seamount predictions based on SRTM30 global bathymetry version 11. This update was prompted by a seamount survey in the British Indian Ocean Territory in 2016, where locations of two putative seamounts were visited. These ‘seamounts’ were targeted based on previous predictions, but these features were not detected during echosounder surveys. An examination of UK hydrographic office navigational (Admiralty) charts for the area showed that the summits of these putative features had soundings reporting “no bottom detected at this depth” where “this depth” was similar to the seabed reported from the bathymetry grids: we suspect that these features likely resulted from an initial misreading of the charts. We show that 15 phantom seamount features, derived from a misinterpretation of no-bottom sounding data, persist in current global bathymetry grids and updated seamount predictions. Overall, we predict 37,889 seamounts, an increase of 4,437 from the previous predictions derived from an older global bathymetry grid (SRTM30 v. 6). This increase is due to greater detail in newer bathymetry grids as acoustic mapping of the seabed expands. The new seamount predictions are available at https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.921688.

            Content

            Author and article information

            Journal
            UCL Open: Environment Preprint
            UCL Press
            31 March 2021
            Affiliations
            [1 ] Zoological Society of London & University College London
            [2 ] Zoological Society of London
            [3 ] University of Plymouth
            [4 ] University of St Andrews
            Author notes
            Author information
            https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6731-4229
            https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4011-0207
            https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3108-9231
            https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4415-7152
            https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6438-6892
            https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8647-5562
            Article
            10.14324/111.444/000044.v2
            4e96c0b7-4720-4d6d-b3d6-af777866702d

            This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

            History
            : 22 June 2020

            The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available in the repository: https://doi.pangaea.de/10.1594/PANGAEA.921688
            Geography
            Seamounts,Bathymetry,Knolls,Environmental science

            Comments

            Date: 15 April 2021

            Handling Editor: Dan Osborn

            The article has been revised, this article remains a preprint article and peer-review has not been completed. It is under consideration following submission to UCL Open: Environment Preprint for open peer review.

            2021-04-15 15:07 UTC
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