Bermuda Pedestal

The Bermuda Pedestal is an oval-shaped geological feature in the northern Atlantic Ocean. It is at least 50 km (31 mi) long and 22 km (14 mi) wide, situated on a much larger bulge known as the Bermuda Rise. The islands of Bermuda are located on the southeastern margin of the Bermuda Pedestal.[1]

Scientists have long considered the Bermuda Pedestal to be the remains of a large extinct shield volcano that formed between 45 and 35 million years ago. A number of theories have been established to explain the origin of the Bermuda Pedestal. According to one of these theories, it was formed by volcanic activity of the Bermuda hotspot. However, a hotspot origin for the Bermuda Pedestal has never been strongly supported and has been largely shut out by a detailed and tightly argued paper by Peter R. Vogt of the University of California and Woo-Yeol Jung of the United States Naval Research Laboratory. In contrast, Vogt and Jung propose that the Bermuda Pedestal possibly formed as a result of a worldwide reorganization of the Earth's tectonic plates due to the closing of the Tethys Ocean when the Indian subcontinent collided with Eurasia.[1]

The size of the Bermuda Pedestal combined with knowledge of other mid-ocean volcanoes tells us that the Bermuda volcano originally reached 1,000 m (3,300 ft) above sea level and that it took three to ten million years to reduce it to sea level.[2]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 Vogt, P. R.; Jung, W. Y. (2007). "Origin of the Bermuda volcanoes and Bermuda Rise: History, Observations, Models, and Puzzles" (PDF). Geological Society of America Special Papers. 430: 553–591. Retrieved 9 October 2016.
  2. ↑ "Origin of Bermuda and Its Caves". NOAA. January 2013. Retrieved 9 October 2016.

Coordinates: 32°20′N 64°45′W / 32.333°N 64.750°W / 32.333; -64.750


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