HONOLULU — A volcano might be erupting deep beneath the Pacific Ocean within the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, however scientists don’t know for positive as a result of it’s so inaccessible.
All indications are that the Ahyi Seamount started erupting in mid-October, the U.S. Geological Survey mentioned Monday. The Northern Marianas are about 3,800 miles west of Honolulu.
Scientists need to see if the exercise is shallow earthquakes or if materials exploded from the crater, mentioned Matt Haney, a USGS analysis geophysicist. Scientists are checking satellite tv for pc information to see if there’s discolored water, which may recommend materials is popping out of the volcano, he mentioned.
“There’s nothing proper now that means that this eruption will intensify and change into a big eruption,” Haney mentioned.
Nonetheless, mariners would need to keep away from the instant space, he mentioned.
Exercise from an undersea volcanic supply was picked up final month by hydroacoustic sensors some 1,400 miles away at Wake Island.
With assist from the the Laboratoire de Geophysique in Tahiti and information from seismic stations in Guam and Japan, scientists analyzed the alerts to find out the supply of the exercise was most likely Ahyi Seamount, the USGS mentioned in a press release.
Exercise has been declining in latest days, the assertion mentioned.
Ahyi seamount is a big conical submarine volcano. Its highest level is 259 ft beneath the floor of the ocean. It’s situated about 11 miles southeast of the island of Farallon de Pajaros, often known as Uracas.
“There aren’t any native monitoring stations close to Ahyi Seamount, which limits our capability to detect and characterize volcanic unrest there,” the company mentioned. “We’ll proceed to observe out there distant hydrophonic, seismic, and satellite tv for pc information intently.”
The seamount is a part of the Mariana Volcanic Arc, which is a sequence of greater than 60 energetic volcanoes stretching over 600 miles west of and parallel to the Mariana Trench, the world’s deepest level.
