Orca Seamount


Orca Seamount is a seamount near King George Island in Antarctica, in the Bransfield Strait. While it is inactive, last volcanic activity at Orca Seamount is judged to have occurred in the recent past as there are temperature anomalies in the seawater around at the seamount. Thermophilic and hyperthermophilic microorganisms organism have been found at the seamount.
The crater rim is about 3 km wide and about 500 m above the ocean floor.
The seamount was first named by Professor O. González-Ferrán of Chile in 1987, after the orca often sighted in these waters. It was mapped and studied by the ship RV Polarstern during an Antarctic cruise in 2005. The variant name of Viehoff Seamount was named for Dr. Thomas Viehoff, a remote sensing specialist in marine sciences. Name proposed by Dr. G.B. Udintsev, Vernadsky Institute of Geochemistry.

Geology

The submarine volcano is a Pleistocene-Recent shield volcano within the Bransfield Basin. The volcano has a base diameter of 20 km, and a height of 1000 m.