Underwater volcano off Oregon coast could erupt by the end of the year, researchers say, but nothing ‘looks imminent’

An underwater volcano off the coast of Oregon that was forecast to erupt sometime this year doesn’t look imminent, according to volcanologists who are closely monitoring it.

The Axial Seamount is located about 300 miles off the coast of Oregon in the Pacific Ocean, and it’s 4,900 feet below the surface of the sea along the Juan de Fuca Ridge. For comparison, its depth is about two-and-a-half times the height of One World Trade Center in New York City, which is 1,776 feet, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

It’s the most active submarine volcano in the northeast Pacific. In the last 30 years that it’s been monitored, three eruptions have occurred: in 1998, 2011 and 2015, according to researchers Bill Chadwick at Oregon State University and Scott Nooner at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington.

“Our forecast of an eruption at Axial Seamount by the end of the year still stands, but I have to say nothing looks imminent,” Chadwick told KOIN on Wednesday. Yahoo contacted Chadwick for an updated confirmation of this assessment and is awaiting a response.

Here’s what else to know about the underwater volcano.

Does the underwater volcanic eruption pose a serious threat?

No. Due to the Axial Seamount’s great depth underwater, combined with its relatively gentle lava flow style, it doesn’t pose a threat to human life, ocean travel or property, the U.S. Geological Survey says.

“For the size of eruptions we’ve seen in the last 20 years … if you were on top of it on a boat, you would never know it,” Chadwick previously told local media.

However, the next eruption will help researchers better understand and forecast how volcanoes erupt on land.

Why is it forecast to erupt this year?

Inflation in an underwater volcano happens when magma accumulates below the sea floor and pushes the surface of the volcano upward, Chadwick explained at a 2024 seminar. One of the signs that an eruption of Axial Seamount might happen this year is that the volcano reached the same inflation levels from when it erupted in 2015, back in January.

But as of July, “the rate of inflation has been slowly decreasing all year,” Chadwick wrote in a blog on the OSU website that details the eruption forecast.

Researchers also monitor seismic activity near the volcano through instruments and cables that extend from the U.S. coast. In June, there were more than 2,000 earthquakes recorded near Axial Seamount in a single day, which is a sign that an eruption could be imminent.

Additionally, in July, the tsunami wave from the 8.8 magnitude earthquake near Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula “triggered the automated alerts we have in place to notify us when an eruption might be starting,” even though it wasn’t actually an eruption, according to Chadwick’s blog post.

“We can only wait and see, but nothing seems imminent at the moment since the rate of unrest keeps wavering up and down, up and down,” Chadwick writes. “Of course, we don’t really know what it will take to trigger the next eruption and exactly when that will happen. But hopefully we’ll learn more about that triggering process by the monitoring we are doing now.”