article for January 15, 2019
Article of the day for January 15, 2019 is Wōdejebato . Wōdejebato is an undersea volcanic mountain with a flat top (a guyot), and probably a shield volcano, in the northern Marshall Islands of the Pacific. Formed of basaltic rocks, it is connected through a 74-kilometre (46 mi) submarine ridge to the smaller Bikini Atoll to its southeast. Named for a sea god of Bikini, Wōdejebato rises 4,420 metres (14,500 ft) above the ocean floor, to within 1,335 metres (4,380 ft) of the surface. It was probably formed by a hotspot in present-day French Polynesia before being shifted by plate tectonics. A volcanic episode in the Late Cretaceous led to the formation of an island and a carbonate platform that disappeared below the sea. A second volcanic episode between 85 and 78.4 million years ago created an island that was eventually eroded, generating an atoll or atoll-like structure that covered the former island with carbonates. The second carbonate platform drowned about 68 million years ago.
