Bermuda Pedestal facts for kids

The Bermuda Pedestal is a special oval-shaped part of the Earth's surface found in the northern Atlantic Ocean. It includes higher areas like the Bermuda Platform, the Plantagenet (Argus) Bank, and the Challenger Bank. These are like underwater mountains or hills.

The Bermuda Pedestal is about 50 kilometers (31 miles) long and 25 kilometers (16 miles) wide at a depth of 185 meters (607 feet). Its very bottom, deep in the ocean, is much larger, measuring 130 kilometers (81 miles) by 80 kilometers (50 miles) at a depth of 4,200 meters (13,780 feet).

Around this pedestal is an even bigger underwater rise called the Bermuda Rise. It's huge, about 900 kilometers (559 miles) long and 600 kilometers (373 miles) wide at a depth of 5,000 meters (16,404 feet). The famous Bermuda islands are located on the southeastern edge of the Bermuda Pedestal.

How the Bermuda Pedestal Formed

Scientists believe the Bermuda Pedestal is what's left of a very large, old volcano. This volcano was active between 45 and 35 million years ago. Imagine a giant mountain that used to stick out of the ocean!

Volcanoes and Hotspots

One main idea is that the Bermuda Pedestal was created by something called the Bermuda hotspot. A hotspot is like a super hot spot deep inside the Earth. It melts rock, which then rises to the surface as lava, building up a volcano over millions of years.

The rocks under the ocean around Bermuda are about 120 million years old. The Bermuda Rise, the larger area around the pedestal, started to lift up about 35 to 56 million years ago. Over time, parts of it wore away due to natural forces like water and wind.

Later, around 23 to 34 million years ago, volcanic material was deposited, and then the area slowly sank below sea level. The original volcanic rock is now found about 75 meters (246 feet) below the surface of the platform. On the Bermuda islands themselves, it's about 50 meters (164 feet) down, except for one spot near Castle Harbour, where it's only 15 meters (49 feet) deep. These volcanic rocks are mostly made of a type of lava called tholeiitic lavas and some other intrusive rocks.

Earth's Moving Plates

Another idea about how the Bermuda Pedestal formed comes from scientists Peter R. Vogt and Woo-Yeol Jung. They suggest it might have formed because of a big change in the Earth's tectonic plates.

The Earth's surface is made of huge pieces, like a giant puzzle, called tectonic plates. These plates are always slowly moving. When the Indian subcontinent (which is a large landmass) crashed into Eurasia (the continent of Europe and Asia), it caused a worldwide shift in how these plates moved. This massive collision might have led to the formation of the Bermuda Pedestal.

How Big Was the Volcano?

By studying the size of the Bermuda Pedestal and other volcanoes in the middle of oceans, scientists think the original Bermuda volcano was once about 1,000 meters (3,281 feet) tall, rising high above the sea. It probably took between three and ten million years for this huge volcano to wear down and sink to its current level below the ocean's surface.