What our monitoring data are telling us
The Volcanic Alert Level for Taupō Volcano is raised to Volcanic Alert Level 1 (minor volcanic unrest). The minor volcanic unrest is causing the ongoing earthquakes and ground deformation at Taupō Volcano.
GNS Science, through the GeoNet programme, continually monitors Taupō volcano and our other active volcanoes for signs of activity. There has been an increase in earthquakes and deformation (ground movement) at Taupō since May 2022 indicating volcanic unrest is occurring. The Volcanic Alert Level (VAL) change this week has been informed by our ongoing analysis of monitoring data, increased knowledge of Taupō Volcano from research programmes and new knowledge of causes of past unrest at Taupō Volcano.
Although this is the first time we have raised the VAL to 1, this is not the first volcanic unrest at Taupō. There have been 17 previous episodes of unrest over the past 150 years. Several of these were more severe than what we are currently observing at Taupō. None of these episodes, or the many other episodes which would have occurred over the past 1800 years before written records were kept, ended in an eruption. The last eruption at Taupō volcano was in 232 AD ± 10 years. The chance of an eruption at Taupō remains very low in any one year.
The earthquakes and deformation could continue for the coming weeks or months. While some of the earthquakes may be felt in areas around Lake Taupō, the deformation is currently only detectable by our sensitive monitoring instruments. GNS Science continues to actively monitor the volcano.
