A stock image shows a view of the waters off Pacitan regency, East Java, as seen from Karang Bolong Beach. - Shutterstock/surya pratama)
JAKARTA (The Jakarta Post/Asia News Network): A geological survey team from the Geospatial Information Agency (BIG) has discovered an undersea mountain in the Indian Ocean south of Pacitan regency, East Java.
BIG’s marine mapping coordinator, Fajar Triady Mugiarto, said on Monday (Feb 13) that the undersea mountain, also called a seamount, was located on the ocean floor at a depth of 6,000m and was 2,200m tall, meaning that the seamount’s peak was located 3,800m below sea level.
“The recently discovered seamount is located around 260km south of Pacitan, between the administrative lines of Central Java and East Java,” Fajar said.
The team from BIG’s Marine and Coastal Mapping Center (PKLP) made the discovery while surveying the extended continental shelf (ECS) spanning the regions of Java, Bali and Nusa Tenggara.
In collaboration with the National Innovation and Research Agency (BRIN), the survey was conducted over 52 days at sea from September to November 2022 aboard the KR Baruna Jaya III.
The research vessel, which is owned by the BRIN, was used to record bathymetric data for developing a detailed map of seabed topography to measure Indonesia’s ECS, the coastal shelf beyond 200 nautical miles from the country’s shores.
Fajar said that following the discovery of the seamount, BIG set up a coordination meeting with geologists, hydrographers and regional representatives from Pacitan regency and East Java province, as well as representatives from the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, the BRIN and the Indonesian Navy’s Hydro-Oceanographic Center (Pushidrosal).
In the B-6 Standardization of Undersea Feature Names of the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO), Fajar explained, a seamount was defined as an undersea mountain with an equidimensional shape that “rises 1000m from deepest isobath surrounding most of the feature”.
Based on the IHO’s definition, he continued, BIG’s multi-party coordination meeting had determined that the undersea feature discovered in the waters south of Pacitan was a seamount. The feature would be named according to Government Regulation (PP) No. 2/2021 on topographic naming conventions.
Fajar said that the government would start research in March to come up with a suitable name for the newly discovered seamount, with Pacitan regency also proposing its preferred name for the undersea structure.
The final name of the seamount would then be recorded in Indonesia’s Gazetteer of topographic names, after which the seamount’s name would be submitted to the GEBCO Sub-Committee on Undersea Feature Names (SCUFN). Fajar added that the seamount would not be given a person’s name, in the event that it caused a natural disaster in the future.
