A new volcanic eruption is now confirmed to be taking place off the West Coast of the United States.

The new undersea volcanic activity is occurring approximately 300 miles off the shores of Central Oregon, along the Axial Seamount, where a fresh fissure has formed, producing new undersea lava flows, and seismic activity.

This undersea eruption FOLLOWS a series of earthquakes at dormant volcanoes along the West coast in California, and Nevada, as well as several large “steam plume” events from Hot Springs, Cold Springs, and dormant volcano locations.

This is on top of the other major international earthquake , and volcano activity which took place this past week.

The new undersea eruption near the coast of Oregon is taking place directly between the 5.5M earthquake location from this past week (along the Northern California coast), and the 6.2M earthquake location , which occurred along the North Juan de Fuca fault near Vancouver British Columbia.

The volcanic eruption is occurring in the zone directly between the two previous larger earthquakes. The area had not seen 6.0M+ activity in a fairly long time, now followed by an eruption.

Thursday, 30 April 2015 10:25

“Axial Seamount, an active underwater volcano located about 300 miles off the coast of Oregon and Washington, appears to be erupting.

Two scientists, including one from OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center had forecast that such an event would take place there in 2015.

Geologists Bill Chadwick of Oregon State University and Scott Nooner of the University of North Carolina Wilmington made their forecast last September during a public lecture and followed it up with blog posts and a reiteration of their forecast just last week at a scientific workshop.

Since last Friday, the region has experienced thousands of tiny earthquakes – a sign that magma is moving toward the surface – and the seafloor dropped by 2.4 meters, or nearly eight feet, also a sign of magma being withdrawn from a reservoir beneath the summit. Instrumentation recording the activity is part of the NSF-funded Ocean Observatories Initiative. William Wilcock of the University of Washington first observed the earthquakes.

“It isn’t clear yet whether the earthquakes and deflation at Axial are related to a full-blown eruption, or if it is only a large intrusion of magma that hasn’t quite reached the surface,” said Chadwick, who works out of OSU’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport and also is affiliated with NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory. “There are some hints that lava did erupt, but we may not know for sure until we can get out there with a ship.”
No Threat to Coast

In any case, the researchers say, such an eruption is not a threat to coastal residents. The earthquakes at Axial Seamount are small and the seafloor movements gradual and thus cannot cause a tsunami.

“I have to say, I was having doubts about the forecast even the night before the activity started,” Chadwick admitted. “We didn’t have any real certainty that it would take place – it was more of a way to test our hypothesis that the pattern we have seen was repeatable and predictable.”

Axial Seamount provides scientists with an ideal laboratory, not only because of its close proximity to the Northwest coast, but for its unique structure.

“Because Axial is on very thin ocean crust, its ‘plumbing system’ is simpler than at most volcanoes on land that are often complicated by other factors related to having a thicker crust,” said Chadwick, who is an adjunct professor in OSU’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences. “Thus Axial can give us insights into how volcano magma systems work – and how eruptions might be predicted.”