Documentation of IPY Seamount

During Leg ANT-XXIII/9 on 2007-04-04 the German research vessel POLARSTERN mapped a significant bathymetric feature with its swath sonar system in the area of the Indian Ridge in the Southern Indian Ocean. The feature is a vulcano located 800 km northwest of Crozet Island. The vulcano with a crater has an absolute height of 1370 m, extending from 3100 m mean depth of the surrounding sea floor to a depth of 1730 m at the top of the crater rim. The crater has a depth of about 135 m. Due to the fact, that the feature was discovered just a month after the fourth International Polar Year (IPY) 2007/2009 has started, it was named "IPY Seamount". The undersea feature name proposal was submitted to the International Hydrographic Organisation (IHO) and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC of UNESCO) on 2007-05-11. The name was officially accepted by the GEBCO Sub-Committee on Undersea Feature Names (SCUFN) at its 20th meeting in July and was added to the GEBCO Gazetteer of UFN.