Scientists have made a new discovery about what happens deep inside volcanoes when they are not erupting, helping experts better understand these powerful natural systems and how they can be safely studied, reported Newsweek.

Scientists have recently discovered how magma behaves beneath active volcanoes, opening up new possibilities for monitoring and targeted drilling for green energy. Although volcanoes are renowned for their eruptions-which occur daily across the globe-they remain dormant for most of the time, raising the question of what happens to the magma while it is inactive.

A team led by Janine Birnbaum, a volcanologist at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munich, has for the first time directly reconstructed the actual conditions within a magma chamber and determined how it responds during drilling operations. Their findings have been published in the journal Nature and could revolutionise the way volcanoes are monitored.

During quiescent periods, magma slowly rises from the depths of the Earth and can remain trapped within the crust for years, decades, or even millennia. During this time, it cools, crystallises, assimilates surrounding rocks, and either loses or gains dissolved gases-such as water and carbon dioxide-which ultimately trigger eruptions.