© Ian Hamling A drawing looking south along the Taupo Volcanic Zone showing the subduction of the Pacific Plate under the North Island of New Zealand. Uplift of the surface measured by satellite radar and GPS suggests the presence of a magmatic body beneath the Bay of Plenty coast at a depth of 9.5 km
Scientists say they've discovered a magma buildup near a New Zealand town that explains a spate of recent earthquakes and could signal the beginnings of a new volcano—although they're not expecting an eruption anytime soon.
Geophysicist Ian Hamling said that since 1950, enough
magma to fill 80,000 Olympic-size swimming pools has
squeezed up beneath the surface near the coastal town of Matata, about 200 kilometers (120 miles) southeast of Auckland.A paper published Saturday in the online journal
Science Advances outlines the findings. Hamling, the paper's lead author, said that while other parts of New Zealand have
active volcanoes,
there have been none near Matata for at least 400,000 years."It was quite a big surprise," he said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Using GPS data and satellite images, the scientists say they discovered an area of land about 400 square kilometers (154 square miles) has risen by 40 centimeters (16 inches) since 1950.
Hamling said a period of quick uplift between 2004 and 2011 likely triggered thousands of small earthquakes. Scientists had previously thought tectonic shifts caused the quakes.
