Axial Seamount Still Erupting, Researchers To Visit Area in Summer By Ship To Confirm Eruption

Axial Seamount, the underwater volcano 300 miles off the Oregon coast, appears to be still erupting. To confirm the eruption, the researchers who forecast the eruption two months ago would visit the place by ship in summer.

Bill Chadwick, geologist of the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory and Oregon State University, and Scott Nooner, geologist at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, discovered Axial’s last eruption in April 2011 by accident while they were on a routine expedition in late July. A robotic instrument deployed to explore the area showed fresh lava over 12 feet thick in some places.

The 2011 eruption was forecast by the pair in 2006. The two have been monitoring Axial since its 1998 eruption, reports CSMonitor. To monitor Axial, Chawick and Nooner use the Ocean Observatories Initiative system installed last summer by the University of Washington.

The system has eight seismometers placed around the edges of Axial’s caldera and sensors to track changes in water pressure due to movements in the mount’s surface. It either inflates or deflates, moves up or down.

Chadwick explains that if the seafloor goes up, there is less ocean above and a little less pressure. The instruments are very sensitive that it could measure within a millimetre of vertical motion.

He adds that Oregon is the first place in the world with a wired volcano on the seafloor. University of Washington Professor John Delaney said the system has other capabilities beyond monitoring underwater volcanoes. It could also track whale migrations, monitor fish populations and measure ocean acidification due to climate change, reports Tech Times.

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