Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology (KIOST) President Kim Woong-seo announced that a seamount found in the Pacific Ocean has finally been given the official name “Jeongyakjeon Seamount.”

The registration of the geographical name was deliberated by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission and at the 34th meeting of the International Hydrographic Organization's Sub-Committee on Undersea Feature Names (SCUFN).

The last time Korea registered the name of an underwater mountain, KIOST Seamount, was in 2018, four years ago, through the official gazetteer.
  * SCUFN (Sub-Committee on Undersea Feature Names): joint committee of the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) and Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) for the deliberation, resolution, and standardization of terms and definitions for undersea features worldwide

In 2017, the research team of Senior Engineer Park Yo-seop discovered a seamount 520 kilometers east of Guam while sailing near the North Pacific Ocean. An underwater mountain can be named “seamount” if it has a height of 1,000 meters or more from the sea floor. This seamount is about 28 kilometers from the previously-discovered KIOST Seamount. The researchers identified the location and size of the seamount using the research vessel ISABU's deep-sea, multi-beam fathometer, which showed that the bottom and top of the seamount are 5,900 meters and 4,629 meters from the surface of the water, respectively, indicating a height of 1,271 meters, and that the seamount has a width of eight kilometers. In addition, it was found to have a topographical shape similar to that of a sunken caldera at its peak.

Jeong Yakjeon, a marine biologist who was active during the Joseon Dynasty, compiled Jasaneobo, or the “Book of Fish,” in 1801, in which he detailed the ecological characteristics of Heuksando Island, including the names, distributions, and ecology of marine life inhabiting the coast. Jeongyakjeon Seamount was named in honor of his work.

President Kim Woong-seo said, “This naming is meaningful in that it represents the international registration and use of a Korean name for a subsea landform in the Northwest Pacific.” He added, “In the future, we will conduct more in-depth analyses on acquired topographical exploration data from a multidisciplinary perspective and continue further exploration under the sea as well as strengthen our ocean exploration capabilities.”