US NUCLEAR SUBMARINE COLLIDES WITH UNDERWATER MOUNTAIN
A nuclear-powered submarine that ran aground in the South China Sea last month collided with an uncharted seamount. The USS Connecticut, a Seawolf-class fast-attack submarine, collided with an unknown object in international waters on 2 October, causing minor to moderate injuries to 11 crew members. The damaged submarine surfaced and made it to a port in Guam unassisted. The Navy hasn’t disclosed the full extent of the damage, and all the Navy said about the incident at the time was that “it wasn’t another submarine” that had collided with the vessel. But a report released by the US Seventh Fleet on 1 November 2021 has “determined that Connecticut grounded on an uncharted seamount.”
Seamounts, underwater mountains, are remnants of extinct underwater volcanoes. The majority are cone-shaped, but some – known as guyots – have large, flat summits. Seamounts are biological hotspots for marine life because their steep sides encourage the upwelling of nutrients from the deep sea and provide a place for sessile organisms, like corals and sponges, to settle and grow. Over 100,000 seamounts of at least 1,000 metres may dot the ocean floor, but scientists have mapped less than 0.1 per cent of them. In 2005 the USS San Francisco, another nuclearpowered submarine, hit an uncharted seamount in Guam at a top speed of 30 knots, which injured almost all of its 137-person crew and killed one.