Talk:Guyot

...A good place for a Bond Villain to build his underwater base...
If a seamount with a top more than 200 m below the surface of the sea is a Guyot, and a seamount with a top that reaches the surface is an island, what do we call a seamount with a top that is between the two? I mean besides Besides "a good place for a Bond Villain to build his underwater base"... :) I am hoping that whatever the inbetween case is called we can add it to the See Also of this article or define it in the lead.  --Guy Macon (talk) 18:23, 9 October 2019 (UTC)
 * (...Sound of Crickets...) --Guy Macon (talk) 03:04, 4 July 2020 (UTC)


 * ...Chirp... ---Guy Macon (talk) 06:39, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Given the name 'Guyot' because they resemble the flat-topped Guyot Hall?
The assertion that they were given the name 'Guyot' because they resemble the flat-topped Guyot Hall was introduced by this edit in 2007, but it is not backed up by any citation at present. William Avery (talk) 12:43, 11 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Interesting.
 * So we all agree that Guyot Hall at princeton is named after Arnold Henry Guyot, who in 1854 became professor of physical geography and geology at Princeton University, right?
 * Do we all agree that Guyot hall has a flat top? It is kind of flat, but I have seen flatter...
 * And we all agree that Harry Hammond Hess -- who joined the faculty of Princeton University in 1934 -- coined the term Guyot" in 1945, right?


 * But here we run into an internal inconsistency:


 * Guyot claims
 * "Hess called these undersea mountains "guyots", because they resembled the flat-roofed biology and geology building at Princeton University, Guyot Hall, named after the 19th-century geographer Arnold Henry Guyot."


 * but Harry Hammond Hess claims:


 * ...resulting in the discovery of flat-topped submarine volcanoes, which he termed guyots, after the nineteenth century geographer Arnold Henry Guyot."


 * and support the latter claim, but are not really good enough as sources. This is WP:OR and speculation, but I think it more likely that the name came from the author of Guyot's New Intermediate Geography, a book most geographers are familiar with, and not from the hall.


 * So, what to do? I think that both articles should say "possibly named after the 19th-century geographer Arnold Henry Guyot" with a Citation needed. --Guy Macon (talk) 17:46, 11 December 2019 (UTC)
 * It wouldn't be like Bill Bryson to miss a gee-whizz factoid about their resemblance to the hall, but, in A Short History of Nearly Everything, he just goes with them being named after the geologist. William Avery (talk) 09:51, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Hi everyone, I have this information, that guyots were named after "Guyot Hall", (resulting in my edit "His data showed that some undersea mountains had flat tops. Hess called these undersea mountains "guyots," after the shape of Princeton University's Guyot Hall, itself named after the 19th-century geographer and Princeton professor Arnold Henry Guyot.") straight from the mouth of Princeton professors who taught with and obviously knew Harry Hess. I'll see if either of them will want to go on record and/or point to an authoritative reference. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fritsebits (talk • contribs) 05:30, 6 September 2020 (UTC)


 * Please familiarize yourself with WP:V, WP:RS, and WP:OR.


 * Let's talk about these "Princeton professors who taught with and obviously knew Harry Hess". How old are they, exactly?


 * Harry Hammond Hess coined the term "Guyot" in 1945. Very few people become professors at an age younger than 30. (The youngest professor in the US was 22, and the youngest and second youngest -- ever -- at Princeton were 24 and 26.)


 * Anyone who was 30 years old in 1945 is 105 years old today. They would have been turned 70 in 1985. Princeton had mandatory retirement at age 70 until 1994. So I do not believe that any of your "Princeton professors who taught with and obviously knew Harry Hess" were there when Hess coined the term Guyot.


 * Hess died in 1969 (did he teach until his death?), so a new professor who taught with him during his last year would be 85 today.


 * I believe that it is far more likely that your "Princeton professors who taught with and obviously knew Harry Hess" never heard Hess himself say that he named Guyots after the hall, but instead heard the "I heard it from a friend of a friend" urban myth about the naming that is commonly believed at Princeton. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:37, 6 September 2020 (UTC)

Hi again. Princeton is a small town... The professors in question are 82, 83 and 85 years old, and they were recruited by Harry Hess to serve on the faculty in the mid sixties, when Hess was Department Head. Each of them are alive and well, and I will be asking them if they are willing to specifically corroborate and go on record with this. -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Fritsebits 14 September 2020


 * Make sure to ask them to confirm that the information came directly from Harry Hammond Hess. We already have multiple people from Princeton who say "I always heard that..." or "it is common knowledge that...". Also, please ask them to confirm that the dictionary definitions at, , , and  are wrong so that I can start the ball rolling towards getting the dictionary entries corrected. --Guy Macon (talk) 03:41, 15 September 2020 (UTC)

Etymology of guyot.
From wordsmith.org:


 * "The story of the discovery of guyots, also known as tablemounts, is one of serendipity. Harry Hamond Hess (1906-1969) was a professor in the geology department at Princeton University. Called for active duty during World War II, Hess served as commanding officer of USS Cape Johnson. During his expeditions in the Pacific Ocean he continuously used echo sounders to scan the waters beneath him. Understandably, looking for a seamount was the last thing on his mind at the time -- he was more interested in signs of the presence of Axis submarines that could torpedo his ship. However, later analysis of mountains of data of the ocean floor profile so far collected revealed the existence of the flattop seamounts. Hess named them guyots in honor of Arnold Henri Guyot, his predecessor at Princeton. And that's how we got the word for these underwater mesas. Some other above-water geographical landmarks named after Guyot are: Guyot Glacier (in southeastern Alaska), three Mt. Guyots (in the White Mountains, the Great Smoky Mountains, and the Colorado Rockies), and Guyot Crater (on the moon)."

--Guy Macon (talk) 03:46, 15 September 2020 (UTC)