“The phenomenon has two possible scenarios, a volcano could develop over hundreds or thousands of years, or the magma could eventually cool and harden,” he said.
According to nature.com, this is not the first phenomenon of a ‘zombie volcano’. Matthew Pritchard, a geophysicist at Cornell University, notes that there have been similar sightings of magma accumulation in places other than under an active volcano in the central Andes.
“Not to be too glib, but we are not undergoing a zombie-volcano invasion,” he says. Instead, innovations in radar satellites have improved scientists’ view of ground movements, allowing them to find such magma chambers.
Full details of Hamling’s research are featured in the journal Science Advances.
