Off the coast of Oregon, things are about to heat up as a large undersea volcano is poised to erupt, according to scientists.

Named Axial Seamount, the seafloor fissure sits on a geological hot spot where magma rises from the Earth’s mantle — a common sight along the ocean floor. But Axial also sits upon the Juan de Fuca Ridge, area where two tectonic plates are spreading apart in a near constant state. 

Researchers with the Ocean Observatories Initiative Regional Cabled Array at the University of Washington recently discovered during their normal monitoring of Axial Seamount that as the volcano continues to inflate with magma, the frequency of undersea earthquakes along the ridge have increased dramatically with it, raising the potential for the volcano to blow its top, according to a report from CNN.

“At the moment, there are a couple hundred earthquakes a day, but that’s still a lot less than we saw before the previous eruption,” a marine geophysicist and professor at the University of Washington School of Oceanography, William Wilcock, said to the cable news outlet.

“I would say it was going to erupt sometime later [this year] or early 2026, but it could be tomorrow, because it’s completely unpredictable.”

Axial Seamount last erupted a decade ago, and researchers at the Regional Cable Array documented 10,000 small earthquakes during a 24-hour period when the incident occurred. They say the same can be expected during the next eruption event.

The volcano has also provided a glimpse into how ocean life in the region has benefited from its existence.

Due to the magma chamber in the center of Axial collapsing several times, a large crater, or caldera, was formed and created a series of hydrothermal vents that act like underwater hot springs that release mineral-rich gases that help sea life thrive.

“I think it’s one of the biggest discoveries we’ve made,” a professor of marine geology and geophysics at the University of Washington and director of the Regional Cable Array, Debbie Kelley, said in a recent statement. 

“Life thrives in these inhospitable environments, and volcanoes are probably one of the major sources of life in our oceans.”

Ms. Kelley said to CNN that marine life may feel the heat of an eruption but would likely not face much harm, and humans on the surface may not even be aware it’s happening if it does.

“It’s not a very explosive event. You won’t see the ash clouds above water, anything like that,” she said. 

“It’s like if you put a mile of seawater on top of Kilauea … you may see some fountaining, but that’s it.”