An undersea volcano off the Oregon coast could erupt this year

An undersea volcano off Oregon's coast will probably erupt in 2025. The volcano, known as Axial, is a seamount 300 miles west of Cannon Beach, Oregon.

- STEPHANIE PAPPAS

The Axial Seamount erupts regularly – it rumbled to life in 1998, 2011 and 2015 – but it doesn’t pose a threat to people. But because of the seamount’s regular activity and its relative proximity to land, researchers made it the site of the world’s first underwater volcano observatory, known as the New Millennium Observatory. Now, the monitors at Axial are showing that the surface of the seamount is inflating, a sign of moving magma that likely presages an eruption, Bill Chadwick, a geologist at Oregon State University who studies the volcano and its nearby hydrothermal vents, reported at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in December 2024. The volcano’s surface has now risen to 95 per cent of what it was before the