Ilaria Rosella Pagliaro An unprecedented geological phenomenon could be unleashed in the depths of the Pacific Ocean: the Axial Seamount volcano is close to erupting
Lying about 290 miles off the coast of Oregon, USA, buried in the dark of the Pacific Ocean, is Axial Seamount-one of the most active underwater volcanoes in the world. Scientists carefully monitoring its behavior believe this majestic geological structure will erupt before the end of 2025. It’s a bold forecast, years in the making, with a remarkable rhythmic pattern that is characteristic of the volcano.
According to Bill Chadwick, a geophysicist at Oregon State University, the volcano is like a pressure cooker about to reach its breaking point. During the 2024 annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union, Chadwick said:
“Given the trends that are going on and assuming Axial does reach this inflation threshold that it did in 2015, we’re looking at an eruption sometime between now and the end of 2025.”
Why Is Axial Seamount so predictable?
Predicting volcanic eruptions is not typically possible, if at all, in most cases, but Axial Seamount is rare in that it seems to have developed a rather regular eruption convention: in 1998, 2011, and 2015. In the lead-up to each, the sequence is the same: the seafloor rises as magma builds up, earthquakes grow more intense, and the eruption follows, explosively.
This consistency has turned Axial Seamount into the perfect laboratory for any volcanologist. In the past decade, an extensive network of sensors has recorded every twitch and burp. By the end of 2023, the researchers began to notice that the rate of inflation had more than doubled compared to previous years, while seismic activity simultaneously reached alarming levels, recording more than 500 earthquakes a day by mid-2024. As Chadwick noted:
“It cannot go on like this for much longer; the volcano is under immense pressure.”
The role of technology and discoveries beneath the caldera
Axial Seamount is at present the most monitored submarine volcano in the world. A network of ocean-bottom seismic sensors, autonomous vehicles, and remotely operated robots has let researchers monitor the behavior of the caldera in unprecedented detail. Using a state-of-the-art technique called Full Waveform Inversion, researchers have made high-resolution images of the structures beneath the volcano in a recent study.
This study has now discovered a huge primary magma reservoir beneath the volcano, with up to 37% liquid magma in it, and a conduit to transfer magma from the Earth’s crust underneath. On the west side, another, much smaller reservoir was fed by the main chamber through a narrow channel; to the east, a “throat” of low seismic velocity linked the main reservoir to the surface, channeling magma to eruptive fissures.
It is in this asymmetrical system that explains why most of the recent eruptions have taken place on the eastern flank of the volcano.
“Our understanding of the volcano is now more detailed than ever, and this imminent eruption could provide crucial data for the future,” said Mark Zumberge of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Obviously, despite the doomsday scenario, it’s not anticipated that Axial Seamount’s eruption will threaten any human populations as such, since the undersea mountain is in the deepest depths of the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Instead, it will present an unequaled opportunity for scientists to know about submarine volcanic processes and fine-tune forecasting methods.
Source: ScienceNews
