How are seamounts defined?
This is not a simple question, since there are different definitions of the term “seamount”. Traditionally, geologists have defined seamounts as those undersea mountains higher than 1000 meters, but nowadays the term “seamount” is used to indicate topographic hill elevations, regardless of size and relief. Biologists define a seamount as “any topographically distinct seafloor feature that is equal or higher than 100 meters, but which doesn’t break the sea surface”. Seamounts are generally classified as large, if they are taller than 1000-2000 meters and small, if their height is smaller than 1000 meters or rising only meters from the seafloor, regardless of depth. This definition is useful to isolate large and small seamounts, which are detected with different techniques. Global distribution of large seamounts is well resolved by satellite altimetry, whereas small seamounts can only be detected by local acoustic mapping.
