- 1 day ago
The Pacific’s most dangerous underwater volcano looks like it’s gearing up for a major eruption, and scientists are watching it closely because the pressure building beneath the seafloor keeps rising. This volcano hides miles below the waves where sensors detect strange tremors, gas bursts, and sudden temperature spikes that usually mean magma is on the move. An eruption here could trigger massive steam explosions, underwater shockwaves, and even tsunamis depending on how the seafloor collapses. The region surrounding the volcano has a long history of violent activity, so every new signal raises the stakes and the urgency to understand what’s happening down there. Animation is created by Bright Side.
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This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
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00:00Get ready, because one of the Pacific Ocean's most active volcanoes might blow any minute now.
00:06Scientists monitoring Axial Sea Melt, a gigantic underwater lava factory just off the coast of Oregon,
00:13say it could erupt literally any time between today and early 2026 at the latest.
00:19Yes, it's underwater, but don't get tricked by the ocean's cover.
00:23This beast is almost three times taller than the Empire State Building.
00:26This volcano is inflating like a souffle at a Michelin-starred restaurant.
00:31And scientists are so excited they will live-stream it. Seriously!
00:35So, here's the thing. This volcano will explode at any moment now because, well, it's inflating fast.
00:43Over the past few months, researchers have noticed that the seafloor is literally rising.
00:48It's like Axial is doing its best impression of a waterbed filled with molten rock.
00:52Scientists call this inflation, which sounds like something you'd complain about after Thanksgiving dinner.
00:58But in volcano terms, it means magma is piling up underground, causing the seafloor to bulge like a souffle that's this close to collapsing.
01:08Now, an underwater volcanic eruption might not sound so exotic.
01:11After all, most volcanic activity on Earth happens under the sea.
01:16Believe it or not, there are more than a million submarine volcanoes quietly churning lava beneath the waves as you watch this.
01:24The ocean floor is Earth's biggest volcanic hotspot.
01:28What makes Axial Seamount so thrilling is that it's under intense scientific surveillance, unlike any other underwater volcano.
01:35It's like the star player in a volcanic reality show, with a network of ocean-bottom instruments giving researchers real-time updates on magma movements, seismic tremors, and crust deformation.
01:48In fact, Axial Seamount hosts the world's first-ever underwater volcanic laboratory.
01:55Scientists have been keeping a constant eye on it since the 1990s, when they installed sensors that now relay live data straight from the seafloor.
02:03This kind of monitoring is unheard of elsewhere, and has turned Axial into a geological celebrity, one whose behavior we can track with remarkable precision.
02:14Besides, Axial is hilariously predictable.
02:17It erupts roughly every decade, and right on cue, it's gearing up for another performance.
02:24By mid-2024, it had inflated to nearly the same level as before its last eruption, which means the countdown is on.
02:31Scientists are so confident in its schedule that they've set up a volcanic advent calendar, waiting for the day when Axial decides to pop.
02:41But hold on!
02:42Axial Seamount isn't just your average underwater volcano.
02:46It's got style, personality, and a geological identity of its own.
02:52Now, most underwater volcanoes, called seamounts, tend to look like cones or flattened domes.
02:57Axial laughs in the face of tradition with its unfashionably rectangular caldera, a 2x5-mile crater that looks like it was designed by a geologist with a ruler and a grudge against curves.
03:10Most volcanoes opt for the classic circular look, but Axial, it went full avant-garde.
03:16This caldera is punctuated by fissures, vents, lava channels, and mysterious dome-like structures that rise hundreds of feet high.
03:26It's like the volcano is wearing a funky geometrical crown instead of the usual rounded hat.
03:32What's more, Axial's location is like prime real estate for geological fireworks.
03:37It sits right where two major forces collide, literally.
03:40First, it's on the Juan de Fuca Ridge, an underwater mountain range formed where two tectonic plates are slowly pulling apart, like a zipper being undone.
03:51Second, it's purged atop the Cobb Hotspot, a deep mantle plume that acts like Earth's sneaky magma espresso machine, pumping molten rock from deep inside the planet and fueling a whole chain of seamounts.
04:03To put it plainly, it's like the tectonic plates are reluctant dance partners, sliding away from each other, while the Cobb Hotspot acts as the DJ, turning up the heat and keeping the magma party going.
04:17This dual influence creates a complex plumbing system inside the volcano, with magma chambers filling, draining, and shifting in ways scientists are still trying to decode.
04:27The competition between the spreading plates and upwelling magma is what gives Axial its unique geological fingerprint.
04:35And it's also why this volcano keeps surprising us.
04:39Now, we said that Axial's summit isn't just a crater.
04:42The truth is that inside, the action gets even weirder and cooler.
04:47Well, hotter, but you get it.
04:49Axial hosts black smoker hydrothermal vents, which blast superheated water at temperatures exceeding 700 degrees Fahrenheit.
04:58This is no ordinary underwater hot tub.
05:00These vents create one of Earth's most extreme environments, where bizarre creatures thrive in total darkness and scalding heat.
05:09Giant tube worms, crabs, colonies of bacteria, and even octopuses live off the mineral-rich plumes that gush from these vents,
05:17forming ecosystems completely independent from sunlight and photosynthesis.
05:21It's like an alien world beneath the waves, thriving off the volcano's fiery breath.
05:28These vent communities are crucial to science, not just because they're strange, but because they may resemble the earliest ecosystems on Earth.
05:36Some researchers believe life on our planet may have originated in similar deep-sea hydrothermal environments billions of years ago.
05:45Studying them could also help us search for life on icy moons, like Europa and Encelis, where similar vents might exist beneath their frozen surfaces.
05:54When Axial erupts, it's like a natural reset button for these communities.
05:59The lava wipes everything out, but within months, life comes roaring back, proof that even in the most hostile environments, real estate is always in demand.
06:10For those worrying about tsunamis or coastal disasters, relax.
06:16Axial eruptions are the underwater equivalent of a slow cooker.
06:20The immense water pressure keeps things chill, well, scalding, but not explosive.
06:25So the worst thing that happens is some lava decorates the seafloor, and a few crabs have to find new vents to squat in.
06:32This means no massive ash clouds or explosive blasts that could reach the surface.
06:37Instead, lava oozes out and spreads across the seafloor, sometimes traveling for miles.
06:44But for scientists, this eruption is the golden ticket.
06:48Understanding Axial's patterns could help predict eruptions elsewhere, even on land.
06:53Plus, its bizarre ecosystems offer clues about how life might survive on other planets.
06:59Not bad for a volcano that mostly just sits around looking rectangular.
07:04Still, the volcano's activity can be heard in the form of thousands of small earthquakes every day.
07:11Thousands!
07:12As if the volcano itself was groaning and creaking, preparing to burst open.
07:17Again, we won't feel a thing.
07:19But at least, they'll help scientists track the magma's movements and the volcano's eruptive cycle.
07:25Now, one of the coolest parts of this story is that scientists are preparing to livestream Axial's next eruption for the first time ever.
07:34Imagine watching an undersea volcano in action, live, as it's painting the ocean floor with fresh lava.
07:41It's like a front row seat to a natural fireworks display, thousands of feet beneath the waves.
07:46The livestream will come courtesy of the Ocean Observatory's initiative, which maintains a series of fiber-optic cables linking Axial's instruments directly to shore.
07:56It's the Wi-Fi of the deep sea, and it's about to broadcast molten rock in HD.
08:03And there's another twist.
08:05Scientists have noticed a curious pattern in Axial's eruptions.
08:08All three of its most recent eruptions, in 1998, 2011, and 2015, happened between January and April, the months when Earth starts moving away from the Sun.
08:20So why?
08:21Well, it might have something to do with the Moon's gravitational pull.
08:25The Moon's orbit causes ocean tides to rise and fall, which changes the pressure on the seafloor and could help nudge the magma chamber to its breaking point.
08:34I guess the Moon isn't just a romantic light in the night sky.
08:38It might be the ultimate volcanic whisperer.
08:42So, one thing's for sure.
08:44When Axial goes, it'll be the best documented underwater eruption in history.
08:49So, keep your eyes peeled.
08:51This is one natural spectacle you won't want to miss.
08:55And who knows?
08:56If we're lucky, we might even get deep-sea eruption ASMR out of the deal.
09:02Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be refreshing the live feed like it's a Taylor Swift ticket sale.
09:08The ground suddenly starts shaking.
09:12Clouds of gas start forming in the sky, making it dark during broad daylight.
09:17Bits of the ground start swelling, lifting, and even collapsing.
09:21These are the tell-tale signs of a volcano that is bound to erupt.
09:26And this is what could easily happen again with Mount Spur.
09:31It's only about 75 miles from Anchorage, one of Alaska's busiest cities.
09:36More than half of the population of the northernmost state of the U.S. live there.
09:41There's also a huge amount of air cargo that passes through its international airport daily.
09:46So, anytime a volcano this close to such a vital hub begins to get restless, people start paying attention.
09:54Just FYI, approximately 350 million people in the world live within the danger range of an active volcano.
10:03That means that around 1 out of 20 people live in an area at risk of volcanic activity.
10:09Alaskans probably wish that Spur's reawakening was fiction, but it's actually true.
10:15The Alaska Volcano Observatory picked up on several of these I'm-about-to-erupt signs from Mount Spur.
10:22So much so that they raised the alert level to yellow, which means unrest above normal background levels.
10:30Spur erupted twice in the 90s, and it was pretty intense.
10:34If we were ranking volcanic eruptions on a scale from 1 to 10, these eruptions would rank a 6 or 7.
10:41Not that terrible, but still worth 10 to 17 million in damages.
10:47However, these numbers are nothing compared to Alaska's 1988 Redoubt Eruption,
10:53another volcano that erupted and summed up a staggering $345 million in damages.
10:59Mainly because its ashes hit aircraft engines, such as the KLM-747 that lost power after all its engines went off due to the ashes.
11:10If people weren't paying attention to Alaska's unstable geology before that, well, they surely started to after it.
11:17When you think of the hazards of volcanic activity, the first thing that might possibly pop in your mind is Pompeii, Italy.
11:27Of course, that's the worst-case scenario, a city being engulfed by lava.
11:33Spur may seem innocent compared to Vesuvio, but it still took its toll.
11:37The last time it erupted in the 90s, and it threw volcanic aerosols over 60,000 feet into the atmosphere.
11:46Let's get our science straight here.
11:49Think of volcanic aerosols like liquid particles that are released into the atmosphere during an eruption.
11:55These particles are usually created when gases from a volcano, such as sulfur dioxide,
12:00combine with water and other particles that exist in our atmosphere.
12:04These aerosols can actually cool the Earth's surface, since they reflect sunlight directly back into space.
12:11And that's not the worst part.
12:13It can stay in the atmosphere for several years after an eruption, causing lots of health issues.
12:21The eruption unleashed blazing-fast avalanches of hot gas and ash called pyroclastic flows,
12:27along with thick, muddy floods known as lahars.
12:31Oh, and there were also the massive volcanic boulders.
12:36These rock chunks were huge, some over three feet long,
12:40and they blasted out from the volcano like nature's cannonballs, landing more than six miles away.
12:47All that volcanic heat melted part of a nearby glacier,
12:50kicking off debris flows that dammed up the Chakachatna River
12:53and created a whole new lake along the valley.
12:56Some good came out of Spur's first eruption, though.
13:01The main lesson was, volcanic monitoring pays off.
13:05The local monitoring was able to reduce the economic damage done by the eruption,
13:10especially for a city that has an intense air traffic.
13:14Spur is deemed as dormant for the moment, but it could go off anytime soon.
13:19You see, volcanoes are classified as active, dormant, or extinct,
13:26depending on how much action they're putting on.
13:29If it's still active, it's still rumbling and erupting somewhat regularly.
13:33Dormant means it's had some recent activity, but it's still lying low for now.
13:37And extinct, that's when it's been quiet for such a long time that we figure it's done for good.
13:46One of the U.S.'s most dangerous active volcanoes is Mount St. Helens.
13:51This volcano is actually responsible for the most powerful eruption in U.S. history.
13:57Its last blast was so intense, it threw off about 1,300 feet off its summit.
14:03Basically, the top of the mountain vanished, and if you thought Mount Spur's ash cloud was impressive,
14:10St. Helens wins the competition, since it launched its ashes 80,000 feet into the sky.
14:16Eastern Washington plunged into total darkness.
14:21But it wasn't just that.
14:23In a matter of three minutes, the eruption hurled 3.7 billion cubic yards of blazing rock and dust,
14:30enough to fill a million Olympic-sized pools across 230 square miles of lush forest.
14:38Actually, the earthquakes that anticipated the eruption started weeks before May 18, 1980.
14:44A ground shake of magnitude 5.0 went off, triggering a landslide on one side of the volcano.
14:52By the end of the official eruption date, 57 people had lost their lives.
14:57Nearly 7,000 big-game animals, like deer and elk, were wiped out,
15:02and millions of birds laid scattered on the burnt earth.
15:06Researchers don't think St. Helens will blow at the same magnitude again anytime soon,
15:11but they're keeping an eye on it, because this volcano is not exactly finished.
15:16By the way, the word volcano comes from the Roman name Vulcan, which was the Roman deity of fire.
15:24And they often happen at the meeting point of tectonic plates,
15:27which are the pieces of the Earth's surface that fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.
15:32The so-called Ring of Fire, located in the Pacific Ocean,
15:36is the world's danger zone when it comes to volcanoes.
15:38It contains between 750 and 915 active volcanoes.
15:46The largest volcano located in the Ring of Fire,
15:49also the largest active volcano in the world,
15:52is the Mauna Loa.
15:54It's over 13,000 feet high, and it's located in Hawaii.
15:59Researchers say that Mauna Loa has been erupting for at least 700,000 years.
16:04It's most recent eruption began on the 27th of November, 2022,
16:09and it lasted until December 13.
16:12It's been quiet since the 80s, until it decided to wake up again.
16:17Thanks to constant monitoring by the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory,
16:20it didn't cause any casualties when it last erupted.
16:25Scientists have been investing big time on volcanic monitoring,
16:29not only to reduce economic hazards, but also to save lives.
16:33The most recent attempt has been to drill into volcanoes.
16:38Recently, a group of scientists went all the way to Iceland
16:42in one of the world's volcanic hotspots.
16:45There are around 33 active volcanoes in Iceland alone,
16:49but the one that is the most interesting to them the most
16:52is the Krafla volcano.
16:54The Krafla has erupted around 30 times in the last 1,000 years,
16:59and its most recent eruption was in the mid-1980s.
17:03The project, named Krafla Magma Testbed, or KMT for short,
17:07is hoping to advance the understanding of how magma behaves underground.
17:12The main advantage of this drilling research is predicting the risk of eruptions,
17:16but it can also help to push geothermal energy forward.
17:20I mean, can you imagine having electricity that is run by the limitless source of volcano power?
17:27The KMT team will begin drilling holes deep into volcanic ground in 2027.
17:33They're aiming at reaching over a mile into the ground.
17:37After all, it's different to monitor lava activity when it's on the surface
17:40than when it is still below ground.
17:42This will allow researchers to listen to the pulse of the Earth, according to them.
17:49They're saying this research is as revolutionary as the first time man went to the moon.
17:54Oh, and speaking of that,
17:56I was shocked to discover that volcanoes exist all throughout the solar system.
18:00Yep, other planets and moons have volcanoes, too.
18:05The largest volcano in our solar system is Olympus Mons on Mars.
18:10It's a shield volcano, much like the ones that make up the Hawaiian Islands.
18:15It's about 370 miles wide.
18:18If we transported it all the way back to Earth,
18:21it would almost occupy all of Poland.
18:24Yikes!
18:29That's it for today.
18:30So hey, if you pacified your curiosity,
18:32then give the video a like and share it with your friends.
18:35Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the bright side!
18:39So81, code 8000 is missing.
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