An undersea volcano located near the West Coast of the US is likely to erupt at some point this year, scientists have said.
Axial Seamount lies around 480km off the coast of Oregon and has previously erupted three times, in 1998, 2015 and 2011.
Geophysicist William Chadwick, of the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, told a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Washington DC last month that activity at the volcano suggested an eruption would happen in 2025.
He told KOIN 6 News: “Because it's had these three eruptions in the last 30 years, that's why we call it the most active volcano in the Pacific Northwest, because most of the ones on land aren't active that frequently, and they spend a lot of their time slumbering, whereas Axial has a pretty active magma supply.
“So, if it's not erupting, it's inflating and getting ready for the next one. And so that's why we're kind of monitoring what's happening to it all the time.”
Chadwick told Science News that predicting the eruption’s potential impacts on human life would be difficult.
However, eruptions of underwater volcanos are generally less dangerous than those on land.
In 2014, researchers connected monitoring gear to an undersea cable that, for the first time, allowed them to gather live data on Axial Seamount, whose peak is about 4,900ft below the ocean surface.
In the past, researchers left battery-operated monitoring stations in place for several years, but were able to analyse the data only by retrieving those devices.
