Scientists predict an undersea volcano eruption near Oregon in 2025

.sciencenews.org ^ | December 27, 2024 | Rachel Berkowitz

[BenLurkin]

For the past decade, a suite of devices have been monitoring Axial’s every action — rumbling, shaking, swelling, tilting — and delivering real-time data via a seafloor cable. It’s “the most well-instrumented submarine volcano on the planet,” says Mark Zumberge, a geophysicist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Calif., who was not involved in the work.

But in November, a particular milestone caught Chadwick’s eye: Axial’s surface had ballooned to nearly the same height as it had before its last eruption in 2015 — fortuitously, just months after monitoring began. Ballooning is a sign that magma has accumulated underground and is building pressure.

The 2015 swelling allowed Chadwick, of Oregon State University’s Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport, and colleagues to predict that year’s eruption — “our best forecasting success,” he says. The recent swelling, along with increased seismic activity that indicates moving magma, has led the researchers to narrow in on the next one.

The broader team of Axial researchers also has a new tool for estimating the day-of magma burst that will set things off. And other researchers recently used artificial intelligence to dig into recordings of earthquakes that preceded the 2015 eruption and identified exactly what patterns they should see hours ahead of the next one . “Will this precursory earthquake detection work?” Chadwick asks.

[Twotone]

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[gundog]

From wikipedia:

The cape may have been named by explorer Martín de Aguilar in 1603 for its appearance, as blanco means "white" in Spanish.[4][5] In 1775, Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra named the point Cabo Diligensias.[4] It was later renamed Cape Orford by Captain George Vancouver in 1792, but this name fell into disuse and Cape Blanco became the common usage.[4]

Apparently the fracture zone takes its name from the westernmost point of the contiguous US. I’d name it the Windy Bitch Fracture Zone.

If you’re gonna get that ball rolling, how about we strip California of all Spanish names? And many of them have Christian names. For shame....

[gundog]

We’ll likely get a tsunami warning thatmost folks eon’t know about, and nothing else. A big earthquake in the Cascadia subduction zone would be catastrophic. Not sure what the locals were doing prior to 1700 to deserve the Sodom and Gomorrah treatment, but, hey...if you say so.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I grew up in upstate New York and, even as a kid, loved all the Indian names and the Dutch names down around NY City. There aren’t as many Indian names in California as there are Spanish names.

Twelve of the 58 counties in California have Indian names:
Inyo County – named after the eponymous Mono chief.
Marin County – named after the eponymous Coast Miwok chief.
Modoc County – named after the Modoc people.
Mono County – from the Yokuts phrase monachi, meaning “those from the Sierra Nevada”.
Napa County – from the Patwin phrase napo, meaning “home”.
Shasta County – named after the Shasta people.
Siskiyou County – disputed origin; likely from a Chinook Jargon phrase meaning “bob-tailed horse”.
Solano County – named after the eponymous Suisun chief.
Sonoma County – disputed origin; likely from a Pomoan phrase meaning “valley of the moon”.
Tehama County – from a Wintuan phrase meaning “high water”.
Tuolumne County – disputed origin; likely from the phrase talmalamne of unknown origin, meaning “cluster of stone wigwams”.
Yolo County – from the Patwin phrase yo-loy, meaning “a place abounding in rushes”.
Sonoma, Monterey, San Luis Opispo, Santa Barbara

Seventeen of the 58 counties in California have Spanish names:
Santa Clara – Saint Clear
Santa Cruz – Saint Cross
Contra Costa – against the coast
Sacramento – sacraments (from Catholicism)
Plumas – feather
Sierra – large hills, from mountains (montaña)
Nevada – from snow
El Dorado – the golden county
Amador – name associated with love
Calaveras – skulls
Mariposa – butterfly
Merced – person of respect (proper name)
Madera – wood
Fresno = type of tree (found in Mexico)
Tulare – tules
Ventura – venture (from adventure)
Los Angeles – the angels

So exactly half of California’s counties have Indian or Spanish origin names (I didn’t know that even though I’ve lived in California since 1973!)

Heck, even “California” is from the name of a fictional island country in Las sergas de Esplandián, a popular Spanish chivalric romance by Garci Rodríguez de Mon talvo.