The CSS Shenandoah Nature Preserve
1,145 square miles comprises the CSS Shenandoah Ocean Preserve, an ocean preserved claimed by the Pine Republic. Since it is not land claimed by any state, it is a Nature Preserve governed by the Nature Protection Agency of the Pine Republic. It is more than 1,000 miles from the nearest land body, Bermuda, and within the bounds of the Ocean Preserve is the Elizabeth and Shannon seamounts. Both Seamounts are about 10,000 miles deep at their peaks, and they lie just north of the Justus Seamount.
The Seamounts in the area are from an archipellago of seamounts, known as the Corner Rise Seamounts. They were formed by extinct volcanoes.
From Wikipedia:
The Seamounts in the area are from an archipellago of seamounts, known as the Corner Rise Seamounts. They were formed by extinct volcanoes.
From Wikipedia:
"The Corner Rise Seamounts are a chain of extinct submarine volcanoes in the northern Atlantic Ocean east of the New England
Seamount chain. Both it and the New England Seamount Chain were formed by the Great Meteor hotspot.[1] It is the shallowest
seamount in New England, with some of its nineteen highest peaks only 800–900 m deep.[2]
Like most seamounts, they attract fish. Over 175 species have been found there,[1] including splendid alfonsino, black cardinal
fish, black scabbardfish, and wreckfish.[2] Trawl fishing during the 1970s and 1980s resulted in approximately 20,000 tons of fish
being harvested.[1] As a result, the seamounts were closed to demersal fishing (collecting fish near the bottom of the ocean, as
opposed to pelagic fishing, collecting fish near the surface) beginning 1 January 1997. The original ban was supposed to be lifted
31 December 2010,[1] but was extended until 31 December 2020.[2] Almost a decade into the ban, a 2005 Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution survey found that two of the peaks, Kükenthal and Yakutat, had been stripped bare of both corals and
bottom-dwelling animals.[3][4] However the survey, which covered both the Corner Rise and New England seamounts, found
270 species of invertebrates and crustaceans, including 70 species unique to the Corner Rise Seamounts.[5]"