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The article references a similar fate experienced by the USS San Francisco [1]. I find seamounts somewhat fascinating; it's so odd that immensely huge features

The article references a similar fate experienced by the USS San Francisco [1]. I find seamounts somewhat fascinating; it's so odd that immensely huge features like these are still not yet charted. The Muirfield Seamount [2] is a good example. The surrounding water is 5km deep, but the mount reaches until about 20m under the surface, as an unlucky ship found out. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_San_Francisco_(SSN-711)#Collision_with_seamount https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_San_Francisco_(SSN-711)#Co... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muirfield_Seamount https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muirfield_Seamount

laurent92 5y ago
Don’t submarines detect echos? When I walk into a room eyes closed, I know whether it is big or not, furnished or not depending on how the ambient noise gets reflected. Surely the sea must be full of noises and even a black spot of noise should be perceivable? Especially since detection sensibility hs gotten so high with new tech that countries don’t try to hide anymore, but they try to produce fake sounds in other places in the ocean to disturb the detection.
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  Detecting echoes requires that they’re running active sonar, which announces their presence to everyone and somewhat ruins the raison d’être for submarines. Running passive they can detect surface ships, but not mountains per se.
  - jdavis703 5y ago
    To further clarify, unlike the ships of WW II, today US subs mostly exist for a nuclear second strike capability. The strategy assumes the enemy doesn’t know where all the submarine nukes are, so they’re guaranteed to face nuclear retribution if they initiate an attack.
    - oivey 5y ago
      This isn’t true, and, as the article states, this submarine is specifically a fast attack sub. It attacks other submarines and ships. That’s still related to nuclear deterrence, but not in the way you’re saying.
    - krisoft 5y ago
      > today US subs mostly exist for a nuclear second strike capability. I understand that you say “mostly”, but it is not quite true. There are many other mission types US submarines serve. There are US submarines which provide nuclear second strike capability yes. There are US submarines which carry land attack cruise missiles. These are mostly used to surpess enemy air defences. There are US submarines clearly optimised for “special missions” such as insertion of special force units or taping underwater cables. Then there are US submarines designed to hunt other submarines. For example the USS Connecticut is a Seawolf-class nuclear powered fast attack submarine. Nuclear powered means that the energy used to propel it forward and power its systems come from a nuclear reactor, it doesn’t necessarily means that it has nuclear armed weapons. ( Some might think that I am stating the obvious here but it is surpisingly common to confuse the terms “nuclear armed” and “nuclear powered”. ) In any case she does not carry the kind of nuclear armed ballistic missiles one would associate with a second strike role.
  - Multicomp 5y ago
    I know it's not very economical, but perhaps someone could start a submarine cruise? You get some vacationers, use a relatively large submarine so they have some measure of comfort, then sonar your way around a pre-planned public route. Then you have navigational data and sonar scans you can release to the world. Or, even better than releasing (the bankers say to themselves), selling the data.
    - frosted-flakes 5y ago
      Why bother even going anywhere? It's a sealed box without windows—who'd know the difference?
      - imdsm 5y ago
        can we have some port holes?
        jccooper 5y ago
        Sure. You can see plenty of black water all day long.
    - ashtonkem 5y ago
      Submarines are notoriously bad places to be. The navy actually sets very long enlistment terms for its submarine crews, because the re-enlistment rate is extremely low. Even with nuclear reactors submarines are cramped, noisy, and unpleasant. Removing the weaponry might make it suck less, but it’s not gonna be “luxury”.
    - dredmorbius 5y ago
      Surface soundings or a towed array are vastly more economical.
      - ashtonkem 5y ago
        For uncontested waters, yes. The problems start when one military starts trying to make charts in waters claimed by another country. That tends to become a bit of a problem.
  - oblib 5y ago
    There's no other way than sonar to detect things like mountains underwater? That's interesting. Seems by now we might have something else that does that. A way to use sonar that obfuscates the source of a ping, underwater lidar, submarine drones, something?
    - ohyeshedid 5y ago
      What signal would you send that isn't detectable by anyone but you?
      - tikwidd 5y ago
        An array of tactile antennae/feelers?
        jazzyjackson 5y ago
        now you’re thinking like a catfish! i like it
        SomewhatLikely 5y ago
        Entertaining the idea of a probe sticking out the front led to a realization. The problem is you're never going to stop in time if you're at speed. You need to know well in advance that something's there.
      - PeterisP 5y ago
        Perhaps a sound signal that's a copy of something naturally occurring, e.g. by sea animals.
        oblib 5y ago
        That came to mind for me too.
      - jakear 5y ago
        Fleet of small scale autonomous drones? Bonus points if they're water soluble.
rjsw 5y ago
Doesn't look nearly as much damage as to USS San Francisco though, the idea of the Connecticut having hit a container seemed more likely to me.
- CalChris 5y ago
  The USS Connecticut weighs about 10k tons. A container weighs maybe 10 tons. That sort of collision might or might not even cause damage. But by the law of inertia, the sub would, in even the worst case scenario, barely slow down and you wouldn't have 10 injuries. The USS San Francisco was going maximum speed. The Connecticut can do 35 knots but judging from the injuries almost certainly wasn't.
  - oivey 5y ago
    As anyone who has hit a deer in their car can tell you, that’s not how momentum works.
    - CalChris 5y ago
      A deer weighs maybe pounds 100 lbs. A car weighs maybe 3000 lbs for a 30 to 1 ratio. That sub weighs 1000 times more than a container. That is how momentum works.
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        That all depends on the cross section of the impact area. If you'd hit the container in a corner (extremely unlucky) then that would be highly annoying. But subs are made to survive pretty strong impacts, including using the conning tower to ram through ice layers. They're immensely strong compared to regular vessels due to the kind of forces they are exposed to when diving deep.
      - s1artibartfast 5y ago
        Total ratio is only relevant if you want to know how much the sub/car slowed down. Kinetic energy is more relevant if you want to know the physical damage sustained. If you shoot a bullet at a tall wall and a shorter wall, the bullet hole will be the same. Alternatively, a deer will still ruin the front end of a car with 1000X the mass. The energy of the impact will be 1/2mdeltaV^2 either way.
pdonis 5y ago
> it's so odd that immensely huge features like these are still not yet charted The fact that this was in the South China Sea makes me wonder if the reason it's uncharted is that the Chinese recently created it; for some time they have been building artificial islands in the South China Sea in order to claim that entire body of water as Chinese territorial waters. (It's outrageous that this doesn't get a lot more international attention; it's as if the United States started building artificial islands around the boundary of the Gulf of Mexico in order to declare all of that to be US territorial waters. Imagine the outcry.)
- Goety 5y ago
  Maybe they were saying haha we know where you patrol
- mediaman 5y ago
  The South China Sea issue does get a fair amount of attention. It is very unlikely that this is the cause of the Muirfield Seamount. They would have had to artificially create an underwater mountain taller than Mount Rainier to do so. The surrounding water is 16,000 feet deep.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  Inconceivable. And I do know what that word means.
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
  There was this a while ago, in a region not that far away. [1] https://www.volcanocafe.org/japan-the-fukutuko-oka-no-ba-eruption/ https://www.volcanocafe.org/japan-the-fukutuko-oka-no-ba-eru... [2] https://www.ladbible.com/news/news-ghost-ships-brought-up-from-sea-bed-following-volcanic-activity-20211028 https://www.ladbible.com/news/news-ghost-ships-brought-up-fr... Also other recent volcanic activity in Japan, with news about volcanic ash from underwater volcano blocking harbors. Maybe similar things happened there, not so visible, and weren't charted because of that, being new?
- dirtyid 5y ago
  >It's outrageous that this doesn't get a lot more international attention It gets disproportionate "international" attention in US-led countries considering PRC was 2nd last out of 6 claimants in SCS to conduct land reclamation. You simply did not and do not hear about Vietnam, Philipines, Taiwan, Malaysia when they reclaim land and militarize the SCS in each others disputed territories, before PRC responded to defend her claims even though PRC claims (which were inherited from ROC) predates everyone else's > Imagine the outcry. Nor do you hear much about ITLOS ruling against UK and by connection America's now illegally leased base in Diego Garcia occupying Chagos Archipelago / Mauritian territory. No outcry over this in MSM over ruling despite decolonization of Mauritius being explicitly endorsed by UN general assembly. Where as UN has no formal position on merits of Philipines vs PRC PCA ruling over SCS disputes. Globally, there is very little "outcry" simply because it's not an existential issue for countries outside the region, and media bubble is hypocritical when it comes to geopolitical interests. US actually breaking international law in context of UN, versus China not. This point is important, China is in compliance with rule-based multilateralism order of the UN. Versus the PCA ruling that is largely byproduct of US-centred "rule based" order (aka not actually international order but west likes to conflate as de-facto international order)... for which US hasn't even ratified UNCLOS. At the end of the day west will fixate over PRC's not illegal sheninangans in SCS but not UK/US illegal shenanigans in Diego Garcia because everyone manufactures their own consent.
nielsbot 5y ago
Your comment reminds me of that scene in The Hunt for Red October managed to slip away from a chasing torpedo--the Russians had "hyper-accurate" maps of the underwater terrain and knew exactly when to turn from the torpedo's path...
- ngcc_hk 5y ago
  Same same recall. But is it real though.
  - tcmart14 5y ago
    If you saw it on the big screen or the internet, its real.
- hammock 5y ago
  The sub movie Hunter Killer applies this as well.
HWR_14 5y ago
As far as I know, the South China Sea is pretty geologically active. So it's possible the seamount got created since the last good mapping
- bell-cot 5y ago
  The sort of geological activity needed to create a large seamount (especially within mere decades) would be obvious to any country with a few seismometers.
- tan2tan2 5y ago
  Geophysicist here. No, SCS does not have any active volcano in the ocean basin. The last volcanic activity is around 6 million years ago.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    Oh cool, then maybe you can explain why someone said that the it was due to a "dangerous grounds miniplate"? I thought the contention was the bed of the SCS was a thin plate that formed mountains quicker because it moved faster because it was smaller? So maybe the seamount moved? I'll admit I'm pretty ignorant here, and could have been mislead. Or maybe it's all true and the answer is still "yeah, it only takes 100 millennia, not the usual much longer"

laurent92 5y ago

Don’t submarines detect echos? When I walk into a room eyes closed, I know whether it is big or not, furnished or not depending on how the ambient noise gets reflected. Surely the sea must be full of noises and even a black spot of noise should be perceivable? Especially since detection sensibility hs gotten so high with new tech that countries don’t try to hide anymore, but they try to produce fake sounds in other places in the ocean to disturb the detection.

ashtonkem 5y ago
Detecting echoes requires that they’re running active sonar, which announces their presence to everyone and somewhat ruins the raison d’être for submarines. Running passive they can detect surface ships, but not mountains per se.
- jdavis703 5y ago
  To further clarify, unlike the ships of WW II, today US subs mostly exist for a nuclear second strike capability. The strategy assumes the enemy doesn’t know where all the submarine nukes are, so they’re guaranteed to face nuclear retribution if they initiate an attack.
  - oivey 5y ago
    This isn’t true, and, as the article states, this submarine is specifically a fast attack sub. It attacks other submarines and ships. That’s still related to nuclear deterrence, but not in the way you’re saying.
  - krisoft 5y ago
    > today US subs mostly exist for a nuclear second strike capability. I understand that you say “mostly”, but it is not quite true. There are many other mission types US submarines serve. There are US submarines which provide nuclear second strike capability yes. There are US submarines which carry land attack cruise missiles. These are mostly used to surpess enemy air defences. There are US submarines clearly optimised for “special missions” such as insertion of special force units or taping underwater cables. Then there are US submarines designed to hunt other submarines. For example the USS Connecticut is a Seawolf-class nuclear powered fast attack submarine. Nuclear powered means that the energy used to propel it forward and power its systems come from a nuclear reactor, it doesn’t necessarily means that it has nuclear armed weapons. ( Some might think that I am stating the obvious here but it is surpisingly common to confuse the terms “nuclear armed” and “nuclear powered”. ) In any case she does not carry the kind of nuclear armed ballistic missiles one would associate with a second strike role.
- Multicomp 5y ago
  I know it's not very economical, but perhaps someone could start a submarine cruise? You get some vacationers, use a relatively large submarine so they have some measure of comfort, then sonar your way around a pre-planned public route. Then you have navigational data and sonar scans you can release to the world. Or, even better than releasing (the bankers say to themselves), selling the data.
  - frosted-flakes 5y ago
    Why bother even going anywhere? It's a sealed box without windows—who'd know the difference?
    - imdsm 5y ago
      can we have some port holes?
      - jccooper 5y ago
        Sure. You can see plenty of black water all day long.
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    Submarines are notoriously bad places to be. The navy actually sets very long enlistment terms for its submarine crews, because the re-enlistment rate is extremely low. Even with nuclear reactors submarines are cramped, noisy, and unpleasant. Removing the weaponry might make it suck less, but it’s not gonna be “luxury”.
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    Surface soundings or a towed array are vastly more economical.
    - ashtonkem 5y ago
      For uncontested waters, yes. The problems start when one military starts trying to make charts in waters claimed by another country. That tends to become a bit of a problem.
- oblib 5y ago
  There's no other way than sonar to detect things like mountains underwater? That's interesting. Seems by now we might have something else that does that. A way to use sonar that obfuscates the source of a ping, underwater lidar, submarine drones, something?
  - ohyeshedid 5y ago
    What signal would you send that isn't detectable by anyone but you?
    - tikwidd 5y ago
      An array of tactile antennae/feelers?
      - jazzyjackson 5y ago
        now you’re thinking like a catfish! i like it
      - SomewhatLikely 5y ago
        Entertaining the idea of a probe sticking out the front led to a realization. The problem is you're never going to stop in time if you're at speed. You need to know well in advance that something's there.
    - PeterisP 5y ago
      Perhaps a sound signal that's a copy of something naturally occurring, e.g. by sea animals.
      - oblib 5y ago
        That came to mind for me too.
    - jakear 5y ago
      Fleet of small scale autonomous drones? Bonus points if they're water soluble.

rjsw 5y ago

Doesn't look nearly as much damage as to USS San Francisco though, the idea of the Connecticut having hit a container seemed more likely to me.

CalChris 5y ago
The USS Connecticut weighs about 10k tons. A container weighs maybe 10 tons. That sort of collision might or might not even cause damage. But by the law of inertia, the sub would, in even the worst case scenario, barely slow down and you wouldn't have 10 injuries. The USS San Francisco was going maximum speed. The Connecticut can do 35 knots but judging from the injuries almost certainly wasn't.
- oivey 5y ago
  As anyone who has hit a deer in their car can tell you, that’s not how momentum works.
  - CalChris 5y ago
    A deer weighs maybe pounds 100 lbs. A car weighs maybe 3000 lbs for a 30 to 1 ratio. That sub weighs 1000 times more than a container. That is how momentum works.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      That all depends on the cross section of the impact area. If you'd hit the container in a corner (extremely unlucky) then that would be highly annoying. But subs are made to survive pretty strong impacts, including using the conning tower to ram through ice layers. They're immensely strong compared to regular vessels due to the kind of forces they are exposed to when diving deep.
    - s1artibartfast 5y ago
      Total ratio is only relevant if you want to know how much the sub/car slowed down. Kinetic energy is more relevant if you want to know the physical damage sustained. If you shoot a bullet at a tall wall and a shorter wall, the bullet hole will be the same. Alternatively, a deer will still ruin the front end of a car with 1000X the mass. The energy of the impact will be 1/2mdeltaV^2 either way.

pdonis 5y ago

> it's so odd that immensely huge features like these are still not yet charted The fact that this was in the South China Sea makes me wonder if the reason it's uncharted is that the Chinese recently created it; for some time they have been building artificial islands in the South China Sea in order to claim that entire body of water as Chinese territorial waters. (It's outrageous that this doesn't get a lot more international attention; it's as if the United States started building artificial islands around the boundary of the Gulf of Mexico in order to declare all of that to be US territorial waters. Imagine the outcry.)

Goety 5y ago
Maybe they were saying haha we know where you patrol
mediaman 5y ago
The South China Sea issue does get a fair amount of attention. It is very unlikely that this is the cause of the Muirfield Seamount. They would have had to artificially create an underwater mountain taller than Mount Rainier to do so. The surrounding water is 16,000 feet deep.
jacquesm 5y ago
Inconceivable. And I do know what that word means.
LargoLasskhyfv 5y ago
There was this a while ago, in a region not that far away. [1] https://www.volcanocafe.org/japan-the-fukutuko-oka-no-ba-eruption/ https://www.volcanocafe.org/japan-the-fukutuko-oka-no-ba-eru... [2] https://www.ladbible.com/news/news-ghost-ships-brought-up-from-sea-bed-following-volcanic-activity-20211028 https://www.ladbible.com/news/news-ghost-ships-brought-up-fr... Also other recent volcanic activity in Japan, with news about volcanic ash from underwater volcano blocking harbors. Maybe similar things happened there, not so visible, and weren't charted because of that, being new?
dirtyid 5y ago
>It's outrageous that this doesn't get a lot more international attention It gets disproportionate "international" attention in US-led countries considering PRC was 2nd last out of 6 claimants in SCS to conduct land reclamation. You simply did not and do not hear about Vietnam, Philipines, Taiwan, Malaysia when they reclaim land and militarize the SCS in each others disputed territories, before PRC responded to defend her claims even though PRC claims (which were inherited from ROC) predates everyone else's > Imagine the outcry. Nor do you hear much about ITLOS ruling against UK and by connection America's now illegally leased base in Diego Garcia occupying Chagos Archipelago / Mauritian territory. No outcry over this in MSM over ruling despite decolonization of Mauritius being explicitly endorsed by UN general assembly. Where as UN has no formal position on merits of Philipines vs PRC PCA ruling over SCS disputes. Globally, there is very little "outcry" simply because it's not an existential issue for countries outside the region, and media bubble is hypocritical when it comes to geopolitical interests. US actually breaking international law in context of UN, versus China not. This point is important, China is in compliance with rule-based multilateralism order of the UN. Versus the PCA ruling that is largely byproduct of US-centred "rule based" order (aka not actually international order but west likes to conflate as de-facto international order)... for which US hasn't even ratified UNCLOS. At the end of the day west will fixate over PRC's not illegal sheninangans in SCS but not UK/US illegal shenanigans in Diego Garcia because everyone manufactures their own consent.

nielsbot 5y ago

Your comment reminds me of that scene in The Hunt for Red October managed to slip away from a chasing torpedo--the Russians had "hyper-accurate" maps of the underwater terrain and knew exactly when to turn from the torpedo's path...

ngcc_hk 5y ago
Same same recall. But is it real though.
- tcmart14 5y ago
  If you saw it on the big screen or the internet, its real.
hammock 5y ago
The sub movie Hunter Killer applies this as well.

HWR_14 5y ago

As far as I know, the South China Sea is pretty geologically active. So it's possible the seamount got created since the last good mapping

bell-cot 5y ago
The sort of geological activity needed to create a large seamount (especially within mere decades) would be obvious to any country with a few seismometers.
tan2tan2 5y ago
Geophysicist here. No, SCS does not have any active volcano in the ocean basin. The last volcanic activity is around 6 million years ago.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  Oh cool, then maybe you can explain why someone said that the it was due to a "dangerous grounds miniplate"? I thought the contention was the bed of the SCS was a thin plate that formed mountains quicker because it moved faster because it was smaller? So maybe the seamount moved? I'll admit I'm pretty ignorant here, and could have been mislead. Or maybe it's all true and the answer is still "yeah, it only takes 100 millennia, not the usual much longer"