Bathymetric features to the north west of the Scotland and Ireland

North Atlantic around Iceland

The Rockall Trough is a deep-water bathymetric feature to the north west of Scotland and Ireland, running roughly from south west to north east, flanked on the north by the Rockall Plateau and to the south by the Porcupine Seabight. At the northern end, the channel is bounded by the Wyville-Thomson Ridge, named after Charles Wyville Thomson, professor of zoology at the University of Edinburgh and driving force behind the Challenger Expedition. At the southern end, the trough opens into the Porcupine abyssal plain. One of the features of the Rockall Trough is the Anton Dohrn Seamount, a seamount named in the memory of Anton Dohrn rising several thousand feet from the surrounding seabed.

The oil and gas resources in the area have been the source of political tensions between the governments of the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and the Faroe Islands. Rockall was annexed to Inverness-shire in Scotland by the government of the United Kingdom.

Features of the Rockall Plateau have been officially named after features of Eriador in the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, e.g. Eriador Seamount, Rohan Seamount, Gondor Seamount, Fangorn Bank, Edoras Bank, Lorien Knoll, Isengard Ridge.^[1]

References

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