A volcano in the Pacific Ocean 300 miles from Oregon may erupt for the first time since 2015.

A volcano is formed by a hotspot, an area in the Earth’s mantle where hot plumes of molten material rise upward into the Earth’s crust. University of Washington The College of the Environment said in an April blog post. As the crust moves over the top of the mantle, the hot spot stays in place, leading to long chains of volcanoes over time.

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The regional cable array extends over the entire Juan de Fuca tectonic plate, from the Oregon coast to the top of the axial seamount 300 miles offshore. (Ocean Watch Initiative via the University of Washington)

“More than two-thirds of the Earth’s surface was formed by volcanic eruptions in these ridges in the middle of the ocean,” said Maya Tolstoy, a marine geophysicist and dean of the university’s Faculty of Environment. “The pivotal seamount is a direct result of these fundamental processes that continue to shape our planet today.”

Scientists said that the eruption does not pose a danger.

“The Axial Seamount is so deep and far from shore that people on land can’t even notice when it erupts. The volcanic eruption at Axial Seamount is also unrelated to seismic activity on land, so Pacific Northwest residents don’t need to worry about this event potentially triggering a large earthquake or tsunami,” the blog post said.

The first sign of an eruption will be a sharp increase in number From earthquakes About it, the post states.

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Microbes and their waste stream from a “snowblower” vent on Axial Seamount three months after its 2011 eruption. (Ocean Observatories Initiative via the University of Washington)

“The volcano has already exceeded the inflation we observed in 2015, but earthquake activity is still very low,” said Deborah Kelly, a professor at the UW School of Oceanography and director of the Regional Cable Array. “We are seeing between 200 and 300 earthquakes per day, with some earthquakes as high as about 1,000 per day due to the tides. If what we learned in 2015 is correct, I expect to see more than 2,000 earthquakes per day for a few months before the eruption.”

The publication states that the earthquakes will be caused by the movement of magma towards the surface.

Seismic activity in axial seamounts increases at low tide. (Ocean Observatories Initiative via the University of Washington)

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“That period lasts about an hour, and then the magma reaches the surface,” said William Wilcock, a professor at the UW School of Oceanography. “Lava flows spread across the caldera, and lava-filled fissures open to the north or south, reaching up to 40 kilometers (about 25 miles) across.

He added: “Seismic activity will decline very quickly over the next few days, but the eruption will continue slowly for about a month.”