A volcano in the Pacific Northwest is showing signs of re-awakening.
The Axial Seamount is a mile-wide underwater volcano that sits 300 miles off the coast of Oregon and more than 4,900 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean.
Researchers with the National Science Foundation’s Ocean Observatories Initiative have been monitoring this inevitable underwater explosion and now say that the volcano is swelling up like a balloon full of lava.
According to William Chadwick, a volcanologist and research professor at Oregon State University, the Axial Seamount acts a lot like the volcanoes in Hawaii and is set to spew out over a billion cubic feet of ‘very fluid lava’ weighing millions of tons at any moment.
‘They tend to inflate like a balloon in between eruptions. At Axial, the seafloor is actually rising, and that’s a big signal,’ Chadwick said.
In recent weeks, there has been a massive uptick in the number of earthquakes under the seamount, caused by this magma pushing to the surface.
The Axial Seamount last erupted in 2015, triggering roughly 8,000 earthquakes , producing 450-foot-thick lava flows and causing the bottom of the ocean to sink nearly eight feet.
William Wilcock, a professor and marine geophysicist at the University of Washington, warned that Axial Seamount could erupt as soon as tomorrow.
The Axial Seamount is a mile-wide underwater volcano that sits 300 miles off the coast of Oregon and more than 4,900 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. One of Axial Seamounts many hydrothermal vents, which are part of a complex, sprawling network
Seismic activity at the Axial Seamount has been growing exponentially, with hundreds of daily earthquakes now being reported – signaling a pending eruption
Situated along the Juan de Fuca Ridge, a chain of undersea volcanoes extending between Oregon and Alaska, Axial Seamount is a young shield volcano – a broader volcano with a low profile.
Based on the 2015 eruption, Chadwick added that this year’s magma explosion could produce a lava flow that’s nearly as tall as Seattle’s Space Needle.
However, if Axial Seamount does blow within the next few days, experts say it won’t pose any threat to communities along the West Coast.
It’s too deep and far from shore for people to even notice when it erupts, and it has no impact on seismic activity on land.
Although few people have felt the tremors, the region has seen a sharp rise in the number of earthquakes in just the last month, with a major spike in activity recorded on April 13.
Since May 6, the number of daily earthquakes under the seamount has been steadily rising.
The number of underwater quakes is expected to skyrocket during this event, rising from several hundred per day right now to 10,000 earthquakes within a 24-hour period as magma flows out of the seafloor volcano, according to Interesting Engineering.
Mike Poland, a scientist at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, expressed excitement about the eruption, highlighting Axial Seamount as one of the world’s best-monitored submarine volcanoes.
‘This particular volcano is probably the best-monitored submarine volcano in the world,’ he told Cowboy State Daily. ‘It’s fascinating and doesn’t really pose a hazard.’
If Axial Seamount does blow, it won’t pose any threat human communities, experts say. It’s too deep and too far from shore for people to even notice when it erupts, and it has no impact on seismic activity on land
Despite the growing anticipation among scientists, Axial Seamount’s next eruption will likely come as a surprise to everyone tracking it.
Wilcock’s best guess is that the swelling lava finally erupts later in 2025 or even early 2026, but there’s still chance it happens much sooner.
Scott Nooner, a professor of geophysics at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, told NBC News: ‘It’s much harder than forecasting the weather, even though the weather is a very difficult thing to forecast already.’
‘There’s still so much that we don’t understand about what triggers eruptions and how magma moves around underneath the Earth’s surface,’ he added.
This massive underwater volcano sits 300 miles off the coast of Oregon and more than 4,900 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean
Eruptions from Axial Seamount were recorded in 1998, 2011, and 2015, and the volcano has undoubtedly erupted numerous times prior to those events, according to Poland.
In November 2024, Chadwick started investigating the volcano when he noticed its surface had swelled to nearly the same height it reached before its last eruption 10 years ago.
The swelling that occurred prior to the 2015 eruption allowed Chadwick and his colleagues to predict that event.
This time, the researchers’ observations told them that Axial Seamount would erupt before the end of 2025.
They also found that seismic activity at Axial Seamount had increased, with hundreds of earthquakes generated around the volcano per day and earthquake swarms greater than 500 per day.
Wilcock said the first sign that an eruption from this volcano is imminent would be a sharp increase in the number of earthquakes around it – which the area is now experiencing.
The team shared their findings at the annual American Geophysical Union conference in December 2024.
In November 2024, Oregon State University geophysicist William Chadwick started investigating the volcano when he noticed its surface had swelled to nearly the same height it reached before its last eruption 10 years ago
The volcano is located off the coast of Oregon. Pictured is a quaint town in the state
This impending eruption will be a major research opportunity for Wilcock and other scientists, who plan to use a suite of high-tech instruments to monitor the eruption from start to finish.
The University of Washington’s College of the Environment hosts one of the largest underwater observatories in the world, comprised of networks of sensors along the seafloor and throughout the ocean waters.
When Axial Seamount finally erupts, Wilcock and his colleagues will use this array to gather data and images of the event as it unfolds.
Even though Axial is not a dangerous undersea volcano, the forecasting capabilities scientists have gained from studying it could help them predict eruptions from those that are.
Nooner pointed out that when forecasters are wrong with their eruption predictions on land, it can cost people bother time and money through unnecessary evacuations.
Watching the seamount explode will allow scientists to test out their latest forecasting models without the repercussions of getting it wrong in a populated area.
