A mountain in North Korea may be at risk of eruption. Scientists have taken a closer look at Mount Paektu, a volcano with a violent past, and have found that it may just be at risk of experiencing another eruption.
Mount Paektu can be found hundreds of kilometers west of the Ring of Fire, which is actually nicknamed due to the fact that many of the world's monster volcanoes are forged from the collision of tectonic plates in this area. In this case, though, it appears as if this volcano has turned up in a rather abnormal location.
This volcano was actually the source of one of the largest modern eruptions on our planet. More specifically, an eruption in 946 C.E. occurred that helped change the landscape forever. Since then, the volcano has quieted down, until recently.
Swarms of tiny earthquakes occurred at the volcano between 2002 and 2005. While this was somewhat worrying, researchers believed that they could have been due to magma rising toward the surface. With that said, the volcano itself today is inactive, which raised the question of whether it was preparing to become active once more.
In this latest study, the researchers stationed six broadband seismometers in an array extending east from Paektu in 2013. This allowed then to collect data over the course of two years as they looked at seismic waves from distant earthquakes rippling through the crust beneath the volcano.
When researchers want to learn what's going on beneath the crust of our planet's surface, seismic waves can tell them a lot. Depending on how fast they move, researchers can tell what material they're moving through. This, in turn, shows researchers what composition lies beneath Earth's crust.
So, what did the researchers find by studying the seismic waves? It turns out that alterations in wave energy and form revealed softer, and possibly melted, rock. This confirms that the volcano is actually active rather than dormant. With that said, the researchers still don't know whether this material could actually cause an eruption. It will take a bit more research before scientists can definitively say whether the mountain will erupt any time soon.
The findings are published in the April 15 issue of the journal Science Advances.
