It brings the BOOM. It, of course, is the Axial Seamount, an underwater volcano off Oregon which scientists predict will erupt this year.
The Axial Seamount is the most active submarine volcano in its northeasterly swath of the Pacific Ocean, according the dedicated seamount blog. It sits on the Juan de Fuca ridge, about 300 miles (483 kilometers) west of the Oregon coast. And based on recent observations, the deep-sea volcano is fit to burst for the first time since 2015. A group of earth scientists led by William Chadwick, a volcanologist at Oregon State University, reported their predictions at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union last month.
Scientists first studied the volcano in the late 1970s, which is known to have erupted three times, in 1998, 2011, and 2015. The key piece of data in predicting a volcanic eruption is knowing the degree to which the seamount is inflated—a sign that magma has built up beneath the surface, swelling the structure’s aboveground features.
Axial’s inflation and seismicity are monitored by a network of NSF-funded sensors called the Ocean Observatories Initiative Regional Cabled Array (don’t worry, we won’t be testing you on this). Last year, after a sustained period of slowed swelling, Axial’s inflation rate increased from a slow pickup (since around October 2023) to about twice its January 2024 rate by this past June. Alongside its increased inflation rate (about 9.84 inches, or 25 centimeters, per year), the underwater volcano’s seismicity increased to hundreds of earthquakes per day. By July, scientists studying data from Axial determined that “the next eruption looks like it could happen anytime between NOW and the end of 2025,” according to the blog.
Well, no eruption has happened since then, and in October 2024 the team posted another update. “The rate of inflation at Axial has been steady for the last 6 months and the rate of seismicity has moderated,” the team wrote. “An eruption does not seem imminent, but it can’t do this forever.” In other words, there was no change to their forecast, and given it’s now 2025, the team’s prediction is that an eruption will happen this year.
In its AGU presentation, the team stated that Axial has re-inflated to more than 95% its threshold before the 2015 eruption—a major indicator that an eruption is somewhere around the corner.
If the 2015 eruption is any indicator, the predicted eruption could be accompanied by thousands of earthquakes and a seafloor drop of nearly 8 feet (2.4 meters). The seafloor drops because magma is ejected from the swollen volcano into the ocean. Once that is done, magma begins to slowly refill the mount, starting the whole process over again.
Underwater volcanoes can be hazardous; look no further than the Hunga-Tonga-Hunga-Ha’apai eruption which roiled the South Pacific in 2022, forcing mass evacuations, covering Tonga in ash, and causing several deaths and tens of millions of dollars in damage. Chadwick—the leader of the research team—told Science News that forecasting the eruption’s potential impacts on humankind is difficult, but volcanoes on land are generally more hazardous than seamounts. For reference, the 2015 Axial eruption did not cause any reported impacts on land.
