1,000m tall 'strange object' emerges off California coast

The Saildrone Surveyor ocean mapping mission has discovered a giant, hot, strange object unlike anything seen on Earth before.

The strange object was described by scientists in a research team from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) as. resembling a Bundt cake, a large Western buttery sponge cake.

Live Science cites a report from NOAA that suggests it is a mysterious rock formation that rises nearly 1,000 meters above the surrounding seafloor , rising from the remains of an extinct volcano.

Strange volcano discovered through Saildrone Surveyor photos - (Photo: NOAA).

It has been identified as a new underwater volcano , but its bizarre shape is truly astonishing. It doesn't break through the sea and create an island like Hawaii, but remains hidden in the deep sea, with its peak 1,200 feet below the surface.

Other than the crater, this strange volcano doesn't look like a volcano at all. According to Dr. Aurora Elmore, program director of NOAA's Cooperative Institute for Ocean Exploration, other underwater volcanoes have slopes similar to Mount Fuji, but this one's slopes are downright strange and interesting.

Saildrone Surveyor, an unmanned vehicle sailing off the coast of the United States, discovered the strange object about 200 miles off the coast of Northern California.

This area lies outside the area where seamounts are typically found, thus expanding the range in which marine volcanoes can exist.

The bizarre cake shape may be the result of violent and rapid volcanic activity, or a pile of centuries-old marine debris that contributed to the shape of the mountainside.

Such submarine volcanoes are important habitats for marine organisms, so this discovery promises to provide material for many multidisciplinary studies.