2001 marked a two-month excursion aboard the research vessel JOIDES Resolution to collect samples of lava flows from four submerged volcanoes, among them Detroit Seamount, which was drilled twice.

[2] Detroit Seamount was drilled twice (numbered 1203 and 1204), on the summit and on one of its secondary cones; care was taken to put the locations away from major fault lines or other geological features that would otherwise invalidate or bias the results.

[2] Detroit Seamount has a wide (100,000 square kilometres [39,000 sq mi]) base and rises from the bottom of the abyssal plain to a depth of approximately 1,550 m (5,085 ft); in fact, it is as wide as Hawaii island at the head of the chain.

All but the topmost cones of Detroit Seamount are capped in a thick layer of sediments, which were found to have drifted there from a direction due northwest.

The tallest parts of the seamount protrude above this "mud cap", which at its deepest is estimated to be 840 m (2,756 ft) thick.

[2] A 2005 analysis of the results of the 2001 JOIDES Resolution excursion found the age, composition, structure, and history of growth for the seamount.