Have you heard or read about the Axial Seamount? The Axial is an underwater volcano located approximately 480 kilometers (300 miles) off the coast of Oregon, United States, making it the most active underwater volcano in the northeastern Pacific Ocean.
This volcano was discovered in the 1980s, lies about 1400 meters (4600 feet) below the ocean surface, and is located in the Juan de Fuca Ridge, a rift in the ocean floor where magma erupts and fresh seafloor is born. It is characterized by effusive lava eruptions, similar to those of Kīlauea in Hawaii. Due to its depth and eruption style, it does not pose a threat to human life or maritime activities.
The Axial Seamount has been the subject of much scientific interest, leading to the establishment of the New Millennium Observatory (NeMO), the world’s first deep-water volcano observatory. This observatory provides real-time data from the Axial Seamount via submarine cables to a land-based station in Pacific City, Oregon. The observatory was created to monitor the volcano’s frequent eruptions, which are preceded by a noticeable rise in the seafloor, making them somewhat predictable.
At the University of Washington, there is a seafloor observatory operated by a large number of scientists who have been able to visualize in real-time the most active submarine volcano on the northwest coast, of course with seafloor instruments.
It is worth noting that Axial Seamount has erupted three times in recorded history: in 1998, 2011, and 2015. While scientists do not know exactly when the next eruption will occur, they plan to capture it using live video and seafloor data.
Recent reports indicate that Axial Seamount is showing signs of increased activity, and scientists at the University of Washington suggest that an eruption could occur before the end of 2025.
Inflation of the volcano has been documented through several expeditions, including those conducted in 2022 and 2024, which were aimed at measuring the ongoing elevation and collecting high-resolution bathymetric data.
Axial is not a typical volcano. It sits on a fixed hot spot, a place where molten rock rises from deep within the Earth’s mantle into the crust. As tectonic plates slowly move over it, the hot spot remains in place, creating a chain of volcanoes over time.
William Wilcock, a professor at the University of Washington School of Oceanography says, “It’s quite unusual. It’s a real hot spot, and the volcano itself is quite large”.
Given the possible eruption of the volcano by 2025, experts such as Esteban Chávez, professor of Geophysics and Seismology, director of the Research Institute of the Volcanological and Seismological Observatory of Costa Rica, as well as expeditionary in Antarctica, ensure that there is no reason for alarm.
“The eruption of this volcano is not explosive, it will not cause damage in Oregon or the state of Washington, it will not be catastrophic because the magmatic composition of this submarine mountain or this volcano is very well known, it has very little concentration of gas, so its eruption is much more fluid, Hawaii type, where the lava is seen to flow, there is a very easy path to trace for the lava” explained Chavez.
For the Costa Rican specialist in Geophysics and Seismology, the possible eruption of Axial, instead of destroying, would rather form. “This is a submarine volcano that was formed along a ridge in the Pacific and this ridge is the gateway that allows the formation of new ocean floor,” he said.
Scientists at the University of Washington have also said that the volcano is too deep and too far offshore to pose any real threat to people on land. Being located miles deep, they say the likelihood of a tsunami or destructive seismic activity is low. Unlike eruptions on land, this one would probably not be seen or felt by most people, even if it were to occur tomorrow.
Esteban Chávez, detailed through an interview with our TCRN team, that as experts they can anticipate earthquakes or tremors, “we can understand where an earthquake is going to occur and we can understand what may be the approximate period, but to predict it accurately with the date, time and place where it will occur, at this time is impossible because of the physics of earthquakes. Regarding the Axial volcano, this eruption is linked to a lot of processes that occur before the eruptive period, such as seismic activity”.
Seismic activity is the first indicator of an eminent eruption in a volcano. “We saw it here in Costa Rica in the Poás volcano, since the eruptive period began in March of this year, since January it was already being prepared and that is how we communicated it”.
In his opinion, the Axial de Obregón volcano is one of the best-instrumented volcanoes on the ocean floor in the world at this moment.
Regarding Costa Rica’s seismic activity…
Chavez spoke confidently about the seismic activity of Costa Rica, he said that it is very abundant, it trembles around 30 times per day.
Most of these events have magnitudes that are below 3.5 and are mainly concentrated along the South Pacific Coast of the Central American country.
“Along the Osa Peninsula, the Burica Peninsula, which is a very active and very interesting area, where tectonically the Cocos Plate goes under the Caribbean Plate and the Panama Microplate, and it is precisely under the Osa Peninsula where we are expecting the next big earthquake in our country, an earthquake of magnitude 7.4 or 7.3”, highlighted Chavez.
The last large seismic event in this area occurred in 1983 and experts understand based on the data, that the recurrence period of large earthquakes in CR is approximately 40 years. “So we are waiting for the next big event.”
Other active zones are within the Central Valley of Costa Rica, which is one of the main zones that generate seismic activity in the country. Of course, the rest of the country also generates important seismic activity, as in the volcanoes, but as Chavez emphasized “If we could highlight two zones they would be these two: The Osa Peninsula and the Central Valley”.
The last large seismic event in this area occurred in 1983 and experts understand based on the data, that the recurrence period of large earthquakes in CR is approximately 40 years. “So we are waiting for the next big event.”
Other active zones are within the Central Valley of Costa Rica, which is one of the main zones that generate seismic activity in the country. Of course, the rest of the country also generates important seismic activity, as in the volcanoes, but as Chavez emphasized “If we could highlight two zones they would be these two: The Osa Peninsula and the Central Valley”.
