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Scientists around New Zealand’s Lake Taupo raised the alert level for a volcano beneath the country’s largest lake on Tuesday after detecting 700 small earthquakes below the surface since May.
The alert level for Taupo Volcano, a large caldera located beneath Lake Taupo, has been raised from 0 to 1, geological survey agency GeoNet said in a statement. The agency says earthquakes and deformation, or increased ground motion, indicate volcanic unrest is occurring in the lake.
It’s the first time scientists have raised Taupo’s alert level to 1, but the agency says there have been 17 volcanic unrests in the past 150 years.
Despite the volcano’s chaos and raised alert levels, scientists say the chances of an eruption are still very low.
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“Earthquakes and deformations could continue in the coming weeks or months,” the statement said.
New Zealand’s volcanic alert level system is based on six graduated levels. Although it aims to describe the current state of each active volcano, GeoNet says eruptions can occur at any level and that levels may not move in sequence.
According to GeoNet, Taupo volcano last erupted about 1,800 years ago, making it the most violent eruption in the world in the last 5,000 years.
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The blast unleashed a pyroclastic flow that devastated an area of about 7,722 square miles and filled a major river valley in the central North Island with pumice and ash, the agency said.