Over the last eight centuries, a huge underwater volcano 300 miles off the coast of what's now Oregon has erupted dozens of times, its last outburst registered a decade ago. Now, researchers predict another eruption "soon" from the massive Axial Seamount, though they stress that we don't really have to worry too much about it in terms of the danger factor. "If you were in a boat right over the seamount you probably would never know it's erupting, as there's no effect on the ocean surface," Oregon State University volcanologist Bill Chadwick says of the volcano, whose peak is still 4,500 feet, or almost a mile, underwater, per USA Today.
Scientists say they've long been keeping tabs on the Axial Seamount, said to be the "most active submarine volcano in the NE Pacific," and that its magma reservoir about a mile underneath the mountain's caldera has been slowly filling up since its 2015 eruption, with the volcano inflating "like a balloon," researchers say, per ABC News. Another sign of an impending eruption: many mini-earthquakes, with about 250 per hour logged last Monday. "A year ago, Axial seemed to be taking a nap, but now it's waking up," Chadwick tells USA Today, predicting an eruption before year's end.
If and when it does finally erupt—and that process could take weeks, or even months—the lava that emerges out of the resulting fissure will cool more quickly than it would on the surface, forming what's known as "pillow lava," described by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as "bulbous, spherical, or tubular lobes of lava" (check out a video here of pillow lava forming). Folks back on the mainland won't be subjected to any major earthquakes or tsunamis as a result of the eruption, scientists say, but lots of lava will end up in the northeast Pacific Ocean.
story continues below
For context on what "lots" means, the 2015 eruption expelled 5.5 billion cubic feet of the stuff. The eruption will give researchers the chance to carry out observations that will hopefully enable them to make predictions on future eruptions from other volcanoes that can wreak greater havoc. "You don't want to issue false alarms and cause evacuations," Chadwick tells ABC, which would be more prone to happen with a land volcano. "We can kind of experiment with issuing a forecast and seeing if it works out or not." (More volcano stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
