Mapping the Seamounts of the Mid-Atlantic From a Drifting Camera

Okeanos, the University of the Azores' marine science institute at Horta on Faial, sits beside one of the most seamount-dense regions on Earth, where the Mid-Atlantic Ridge rises into the Azores plateau. Deep-water coral gardens and sponge grounds there qualify as Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems under UN rules, but designating them requires evidence, and ship time on deep submersibles is scarce. The institute co-developed the Azor drift-cam, a low-cost drifting camera system that lets small vessels run video transects along seamount flanks, and its MapGES campaigns have surveyed sites from the southern edge of the Azores exclusive economic zone to seamounts east of Terceira and along the ridge itself. That evidence base underpinned Portugal's designation at the end of 2024 of the largest protected area in the North Atlantic — nearly 300,000 square kilometres around the Azores, half of it fully protected — and the process begun in June 2025 to protect the Gorringe seamount off the Algarve.