Three observed volcanic eruptions since 1997, suggest the volcano in the North East Pacific Ocean, has erupted at a similar level each time.
But since the last eruption in 2015, the Axial Seamount, a submarine basaltic hotspot, in the North East Pacific Ocean, has re-inflated to about 95% of its last pre-eruption threshold.
This is according to Dr William Chadwick, and colleagues William S. D. Wilcock, Scott L Nooner, Jeff W. Bees on and Maochuan Zhang, who submitted an abstract explaining details of a possibility of an underwater volcanic eruption in the Pacific, at the American Geophysical Union last month.
Earthnews365 (EN365) spoke to Dr William Chadwick (WC).
EN365: “I was wondering if you could confirm that indeed no people or places on land will be affected by the topical underwater volcanic eruption predicted for 2025.”
WC: “That is correct. Axial Seamount is a volcano similar to those in Hawaii and Iceland which erupt fluid lava flows and are not explosive. Also the volcano is far offshore (~300 miles) and then summit is quite deep (1400 m or almost a mile underwater), so when it erupts there is no evidence at the ocean surface. There is no hazard to people at all.”
EN365: “Which areas will be affected underwater, outside of the area of location?”
WC: “It’s mostly just where the lava flows erupt, which is in the summit caldera and along one of its two rift zones.”
EN365: “Is there a threat posed to sea life, such as biodiversity and oxygen levels maybe and other, what will be the implications on sealife?”
WC: “When lava erupts and flows over the seafloor, it of course buries pre-existing features, which may include hydrothermal vent sites where biological communities exist. But on the other hand, often venting will continue in the same location after an eruption and a hydrothermal vent biological community will re-establish itself in the same location on the new lava.”
EN365: “What is being done to prepare for the eruption.
I know it might be difficult to ascertain, but around which month this year, could the eruption occur?”
WC: “We have no idea exactly when it will occur. We are just watching the monitoring data closely (Axial Seamount is monitored by a cabled observatory that is part of the Ocean Observatories Initiative, funded by the US National Science Foundation.
Once the eruption occurs, there will be efforts to go out and find out more about exactly what happened.”
More information can be obtained from: https://oceanobservatories.org/regional-cabled-array/
Picture: Ocean Observatory Initiative