(BIVN) – The USGS Volcano Alert level for Mauna Loa was changed on July 2, 2019, to ADVISORY as earthquake and ground deformation rates at the volcano have exceeded long-term background levels for the past several months.

“This increase in alert level does not mean that an eruption is imminent nor that progression to an eruption is certain,” the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory says. “A similar increase in activity occurred between 2014 and 2018 and no eruption occurred.”

The USGS Alert-Notification System for Volcanic Activity was established in 2006, long after the most recent eruption of Mauna Loa in 1984.

In the latest Volcano Watch, the weekly article written by U.S. Geological Survey Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and affiliates, scientists take a look back at how the Alert-Notification System may have been categorized the activity at Mauna Loa leading up to the short-lived eruption of 1975.