MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

“Scientists from Oregon and New York have been monitoring Axial Seamount, 400 kilometres out to sea, since it last erupted in 1998, and predicted it would again before 2014.

On an expedition to the area on 29 July, researchers using a remotely operated robot discovered a lava flow that was not there the year before, and began noticing that the entire area looked unfamiliar.

‘When we first arrived on the seafloor, we thought we were in the wrong place, because it looked so completely different,’ said Bill Chadwick, an Oregon State University geologist who co-authored a 2006 study that forecast another eruption by 2014.

‘We couldn’t find our markers or monitoring instruments or other distinctive features on the bottom.’

The team was using bottom pressure sensors, the same tools used to monitor the sea floor for potential tsunamis after an earthquake. A couple of their recording instruments soon turned up, and scientists determined that the eruption happened on 6 April.

The team was excited at the discovery, but cautioned that most volcanoes remain highly volatile.” Read more.

Watch video below to see eruption of an underwater volcano near Tonga in the South Pacific: