Program Description
"Axial Seamount is an active submarine volcano located about 300 miles west of the Oregon coast and about a mile below the ocean surface. It has erupted three times in the last 30 years, making it the most active volcano in the Pacific Northwest. It is monitored in real time by seafloor instruments, and data from the monitoring network suggest that the volcano is building toward its next eruption. This talk will describe the most recent data and its implications for forecasting the next eruption.
When Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, Bill Chadwick was a geology major at Colorado College, and he soon found an opportunity to volunteer, and later work as a field assistant there with the US Geological Survey, who were monitoring the on-going activity. After working there for 2 years, he went on to graduate school at the University of California at Santa Barbara where he got a PhD in geology. Since 1989, he has worked at OSU's Hatfield Marine Science Center in Newport studying hydrothermal vents and submarine volcanoes. Axial Seamount has been one of his focus areas for most of that time."