ITHACA, N.Y., Nov. 1 (UPI) -- Magma is rising in a Bolivian volcano that last erupted 300,000 years ago, a U.S. research team monitoring the mountain says.
Researchers from Cornell University, part of an international team studying the Uturuncu volcano, say the magma is uplifting rapidly.
"Uturuncu -- a volcano in the Bolivian Andes Mountains -- was thought to be inactive," Cornell geologist Matt Pritchard said in a university release Tuesday. "The region is populated by 'supervolcanoes' that erupted between 1 (million) and 10 million years ago.
"Now the Uturuncu magma is accumulating in the crust and we're observing whether it is moving upward toward the surface," said Pritchard, who is accompanied in the research by Cornell graduate students Jennifer Jay and Scott Henderson.
"Right now, we have no reason to think that an eruption is imminent," he said.
"The area at Uturuncu has had hundreds of shallow earthquakes per year, but the rate of earthquakes increased briefly due to last year's tremors in Chile," Pritchard said. "These characteristics are unusual for a volcano that has not erupted in 300,000 years."
