View looking westward shows one of the largest rootless shields at the site of persistent breakouts of lava from along the tube
system. The broad structure is about 20 m high (above the pre-September
surface) and more than 500 m in diameter. In early October, the rootless
shield was topped by a pond of lava about 175 m across.
Several rootless shields grew as lava repeatedly poured from the tube to
feed hundreds of short pahoehoe flows. By the end of October 1999, the rootless
shields merged together to form a broad, elongate ridge. The ridge
is likely to divert future flows away from the axis of the pre-September
episode 55 flow field.
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