[1] Seamounts are underwater mountains, not necessarily volcanic in origin, which often form subsurface archipelagoes and are found throughout the world's ocean basins, with almost half in the Pacific.
[2] However, they have not been explored very much—in fact, only about half of one percent have been sampled—and almost every expedition to a seamount discovers new species and new information.
There is evidence that seamounts can host concentrations of biologic diversity, each with its own unique local ecosystem; they seem to affect oceanic currents, resulting among other things in local concentration of plankton which in turn attracts species that graze on it, and indeed are probably a significant overall factor in biogeography of the oceans.
[3] Specifically, the project aims to act as a standardized scaffold for future studies and samplings, citing inefficiency and incompatibility between individual research efforts in the past.
[8] Organisationally, the components of CenSeam consist of a secretariat (Malcolm Clark, Mireille Consalvey, Ashley Rowden and Karen Stocks) which is hosted by the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research in Wellington, New Zealand; an international steering committee; a taxonomic advisory panel; and two working groups, Data Analysis and Standardisation.