This page was generated automatically, for accessing the article in its original context, please visit the link below:
https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/volcanos/undersea-volcano-off-oregon-coast-could-erupt-this-year-geologists-predict
and if you wish to have this article removed from our site, kindly reach out to us
An underwater volcano located off the Oregon coastline is expected to erupt in 2025, according to researchers.
This volcano, referred to as Axial, stands as a seamount 300 miles (480 kilometers) to the west of Cannon Beach, Oregon. The Axial seamount experiences regular eruptions — having come alive in 1998, 2011, and 2015, as noted by a blog maintained by scientists tracking the seamount — and does not represent a danger to humans. Yet, due to its consistent activity and proximity to land, researchers established the world’s inaugural underwater volcano observatory there, known as the New Millennium Observatory.
Currently, the monitoring instruments at Axial indicate that the surface of the seamount is swelling — an indication of magma movement that likely foreshadows an eruption, William Chadwick, a geologist from Oregon State University researching the volcano and its surrounding hydrothermal vents, disclosed at the annual conference of the American Geophysical Union in December 2024. The current surface level has risen to 95% of its condition prior to the 2015 eruption, Chadwick noted.
This activity follows a phase of dormancy from 2015 to 2023, during which the seamount exhibited minimal movement. The new swell commenced in the autumn of 2023 and intensified in January 2024, with the ground relocating vertically at approximately 10 inches (25 centimeters) annually as of mid-2024. This inflation was coupled with clusters of hundreds of minor earthquakes. Since that period, the rate of inflation has stabilized, Chadwick reported on his blog.
“The inflation rate at Axial has remained consistent for the past 6 months, and the frequency of seismic activity has decreased,” he stated. “An eruption does not appear imminent, but this cannot persist indefinitely.”
He and his co-author Scott Nooner, a geophysicist at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, speculate that an eruption could occur before the close of 2025.
The researchers are optimistic about their forecast as the well-observed Axial provides an excellent opportunity to analyze the behaviors a volcano undergoes prior to an eruption. The volcano’s recent activity, having erupted numerous times across two decades — rather than sporadically over centuries, as is the case with many volcanoes — facilitates a clearer understanding of patterns. Scientists are also more confident in making cautious predictions for a volcano that poses no risk to life or property since there are no repercussions for being mistaken. Currently, volcanologists can produce accurate short-term eruption forecasts, yet, as per the Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program, predictions are seldom reliable beyond a few days in advance.
“There’s no magic formula,” Valerio Acocella, a volcanologist from Roma Tre University in Rome who did not participate in the study, stated to Science News. A volcano may alter its behavior at any time. However, making forecasts grounded in well-monitored volcanoes and seeking to comprehend how the surface movements of the volcano relate to the dynamics of magma and fluids beneath could assist scientists in producing more extended predictions for volcanoes worldwide.
“We require these ideal scenarios to grasp how volcanoes function,” Acocella remarked.
This page was created programmatically, to read the article in its original location you can go to the link bellow:
https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/volcanos/undersea-volcano-off-oregon-coast-could-erupt-this-year-geologists-predict
and if you want to remove this article from our site please contact us
