Located some three hundred miles from the Pacific Northwest coastal area, the seafloor rumbles where over the past five months, hundreds of small earthquakes are experienced almost everyday on Axial Seamount.

However, on April 24 a spike was recorded with nearly 8,000 earthquakes in one day as the seafloor dropped to two meters and temperatures were significantly high. Scientists now believe that an underwater volcano could be erupting somewhere.

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This eruption is apparently not a threat to residents living off the coast as the earthquakes are measured at magnitudes 1 or 2 and the seafloor movements are occurring gradually meaning this will not likely cause a tsunami. 

Scientists also say that this volcanic activity is not linked to the Cascadia Subduction Zone that scientists were observing closely for signs of a larger earthquake that can cause unprecedented destruction.

However according to geologist Bill Chadwick from the Orgeon State University, this eruption from the Axial Seamount is not a surprise as he predicted this event happening this year. Chadwick along with Scott Nooner from the University of North Carolina Wilmington also believes that the Axial Seamount phenomenon can also be applied to volcanoes on the land.

Volcanoes found on the land possess thicker crusts which are triggered by larger earthquakes along with other nearby volcanoes which make predictions more challenging. However he says that Axial Seamount has relatively "simple plumbing".

Axial Seamount is now being monitored and studied for signals via real time using cables on the sea floor where this cable is part of the Ocean Observatories Initiative that is funded by the National Science Foundation.

Chadwick believes that this underwater volcano is filled with very fluid magma that is being continuously supplied from below where this resulted in the seafloor rising up to more than eight feet. These recent earthquakes are also caused by this magma forcing itself through rock under the seafloor.

TagsUS, Oregon, underwater volcano oregon, volcano erupting oregon, axial seamount