Warning: Underwater volcano off US west coast ‘about to erupt’ in 2025

Scientists have warned that an underwater volcano off the coast of the northwestern US is likely to erupt sometime in 2025.

The volcano, called Axial Seamount, is over 3,000 feet high and is located half a mile underwater, just 300 miles off the Oregon coast.

Experts made the prediction on December 10 after detecting seafloor swelling around Axial that mimicked levels observed just before a 2015 eruption.

Seismic activity has also increased, with hundreds of earthquakes per day being generated around the volcano and more than 500 earthquake swarms per day.

“Based on current trends and the assumption that Axial will be ready to erupt when it reaches the 2015 inflation threshold, our current forecast window for eruptions is between now (July 2024) and late 2025,” researchers said in the new study. .

The team first noticed the swelling in November using a suite of tools to closely monitor this volcano’s activity, collecting real-time data on its rumbling, shaking, swelling and even tilting.

Axial, located on the Juan de Fuca ridge, is the most active underwater volcano in the northeastern Pacific Ocean.

Because Axial erupts regularly, it provides scientists with a unique opportunity to study the warning signs that lead to an eruption and learn how to predict it.

Experts made the prediction on December 10 after detecting seafloor swelling around Axial that mimicked levels observed just before a 2015 eruption.

Fortunately, Axial eruptions pose little threat to people and infrastructure on the West Coast.

That’s largely because it is a shield volcano, which generally does not have very explosive eruptions.

Furthermore, the seismic activity around it is too minimal to cause a tsunami or major earthquake.

Geophysicist William Chadwick of Oregon State University began investigating the volcano in November he noticed that the surface had swollen to almost the same height as before the last eruption, almost ten years ago.

Surface swelling is a strong indication that a shield volcano is about to erupt, because it means magma has built up underground and is building pressure.

The swelling that occurred before the 2015 eruption allowed Chadwick and his colleagues to predict that event.

It was their “best predicted success,” he said Scientific news.

Since the last eruption, Axial has reinflated to more than 95 percent of its last pre-eruption threshold, Chadwick and his colleagues explained in a statement.

Because Axial erupts regularly, it provides scientists with a unique opportunity to study the warning signs that lead to an eruption and learn how to predict it.

This swelling has not been constant. The rate of inflation fell between 2015 and 2023, and by the summer of 2023 it had almost come to a standstill.

At the same time, the level of seismic activity remained relatively low during this period.

But starting in the fall of 2023, and especially since January 2024, both the volcano’s swelling and seismic activity have gradually increased, “apparently indicating a fundamental change in the magma supply to the volcano,” the researchers explained.

By July 2024, the swelling had increased to about 10 inches per year and was still growing.

“If inflation and seismicity continue to increase, an eruption before the end of 2024 may be likely,” the team said.

The ability to predict an eruption more than 24 hours in advance is “pretty unique,” let alone reported months in advance, Chadwick told Science News.

But the massive research effort surrounding Axial has allowed researchers to delve deeper into the mechanisms that cause undersea volcanic eruptions than ever before.

They have even developed a new instrument that can estimate the magma eruption that will cause the next eruption. Others have used artificial intelligence to sift through earthquake data from before the 2015 eruption and learn more about the looming warning signs.

Even though Axial is not a particularly dangerous undersea volcano, the prediction capabilities scientists have gained from studying it can help them predict eruptions from those that are.

For example, in January 2022, an extremely powerful eruption of the Hunga underwater volcano in the Tonga archipelago in the South Pacific Ocean caused a tsunami that caused an estimated $90 billion in damage.

This massive wave hit California, Hawaii and parts of Canada, Chile, Fiji, Japan, New Zealand, Mexico and Peru.

The West Coast doesn’t have to worry about Axial causing such an event. But the upcoming eruption will give scientists another chance to learn how these powerful geological structures work.