A seamount is a mountain that rises from the ocean floor; a submerged flat-topped seamount is termed a guyot. By arbitrary definition, seamounts must be at least 3000 ft (about 900 m) high, but in fact there is a continuum of smaller undersea mounts, down to heights of only about 300 ft (100 m). Some seamounts are high enough temporarily to form oceanic islands, which ultimately subside beneath sea level. There are on the order of 10,000 seamounts in the world ocean, arranged in chains (for example, the Hawaiian chain in the North Pacific) or as isolated features. In some chains, seamounts are packed closely to form ridges. Very large oceanic volcanic constructions, hundreds of kilometers across, are called oceanic plateaus. See also Marine geology; Oceanic islands; Volcano.
Almost all seamounts are the result of submarine volcanism, and most are built within less than about 1 million years. Seamounts are made by extrusion of lavas piped upward in stages from sources within the Earth's mantle to vents on the seafloor. Seamounts provide data on movements of tectonic plates on which they ride, and on the rheology of the underlying lithosphere. The trend of a seamount chain traces the direction of motion of the lithospheric plate over a more or less fixed heat source in the underlying asthenosphere part of the Earth's mantle. See also Lithosphere; Plate tectonics.
