Key Facts about Sabina Shoal

About Sabina Shoal:

• Sabina Shoal, also known as Xianbin Reef, is an oceanic coral atoll that developed on top of a seamount in the eastern part of the Spratlys Islands in the South China Sea.
• It is located some 75 nautical miles from the Philippine province of Palawan.
• It is considered to be within the Philippines 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ) under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
• China, however, claims the shoal and much of the South China Sea as its sovereign territory and has maintained a continuous presence there. It is located 630 nautical miles from China.
• Sabina Shoal extends close to 23 km along its northwest-southeast axis.
• It is composed of two main parts connected by a narrow section.
• The western part measures 13 km long by 6 km wide and is larger than the eastern part, which measures 10 km by 3 km.

They both have a central lagoon surrounded by a coral ring made of discontinuous shallow sections.

Q1: What is a Seamount?

Seamount is an underwater mountain formed through volcanic activity. These are recognised as hotspots for marine life. Like volcanoes on land, seamounts can be active, extinct or dormant volcanoes. These are formed near mid-ocean ridges, where the earth’s tectonic plates are moving apart, allowing molten rock to rise to the seafloor. The planet’s two most-studied mid-ocean ridges are the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the East Pacific Rise. Some seamounts have also been found near intraplate hotspots – regions of heavy volcanic activity within a plate – and oceanic island chains with a volcanic and seismic activity called island arcs. These are formed when molten rock comes up from below the tectonic plate.

Source: China publishes first survey report of disputed South China Sea’s Sabina Shoal

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