The Volcanic Alert Level for Lake Taupō has been raised from 0 to 1 after more than 700 tremors have been recorded under the central North Island's super-volcano since May this year.

An alert level of 1 means 'minor volcanic unrest” and is causing 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,” says duty volcanologist Steven Sherburn.

'There has been an increase in earthquakes and deformation (ground movement) at Taupō since May 2022 indicating volcanic unrest is occurring.

'Although this is the first time we have raised the VAL to 1, this is not the first volcanic unrest at Taupō,” says Sherburn.

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.”

He says the last eruption at Taupō volcano was around 232AD and the chance of an eruption at Taupō remains very low in any one year.

Earthquakes located by GeoNet in the Lake Taupō area from January 1 to July 21, 2022. The earthquakes shown here were located less than 30km deep. There are just over 300 earthquakes shown on the map. Image: Geonet.

'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.

- Stuff/Matthew Martin.