Hundreds of miles off the coast of Oregon, Deb Kelley watched a pod of dolphins swim past the research vessel Atlantis as the sun set on the Pacific Ocean.
But beneath the calm seas lurked a behemoth: Axial Seamount, a massive volcano 4,500 feet below the ocean’s surface. Kelley and her team are in the middle of a maintanence mission, working nearly 24 hours a day for weeks to recover and restore the instruments that keep tabs on the volcano, which scientists believe will erupt in 2025.
Kelley, director of the Regional Cabled Array, is not so sure.
USA TODAY reported on the volcano in May, and not much has changed since then, other than a slight decline in some of the prescursors to eruption. Researchers say they still don't know what it will take to trigger the next eruption or exactly when it will happen.
A reservoir has been refilling with magma since its last eruption in 2015, gradually inflating and causing the volcano to rise. Eventually, the pressure will become so great that it will open up and lava will pour out.
Kelley said there have been some indications that an eruption is coming, like submarine hydrothermal vents beginning to boil. The hot water is attracting sea life that prefer warm, nutrient-rich waters.
But "not much" has been happening with the volcano lately, Chadwick wrote.
The rate of inflation has been slowly decreasing all year. There was a brief spike in seismic activity - including one day in June with over 2,000 earthquakes - but that has dwindled to an average of 100 per day.
When the volcano erupts, it will spew enormous amounts of lava into the ocean for days or even months.
Kelley said the lava flow could potentially cause tens of thousands of explosions and billions of microbes will stream out onto the sea floor like flakes from a snowblower.
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