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Images and Chronology

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8 January 2009

Active pahoehoe lobe

Left. Scattered pahoehoe breakouts were active today on the coastal plain. In the very upper left of the photograph, fuming is visible from the tubes supplying lava to the coastal plain flows. Right. An active pahoehoe lobe on its slow march to the ocean, just west of the current Waikupanaha ocean entry and its vigorous plume. The white dot to the left of the ocean entry is an unoccupied structure that was surrounded by flows in August 2008.

31 December 2008

Waikupanaha ocean entry robust plume and waterspout

Left. A robust plume rises from the Waikupanaha ocean entry. Steaming, resulting from recent heavy rain, can be seen tracing the path of the lava tube supplying the entry. Right. A small waterspout plays below the Waikupanaha ocean entry plume.

Left. Scattered breakouts of pahoehoe continued to be active on the coastal plain today. This lobe is breaking out of a fracture formed by flow inflation. Royal Gardens subdivision can be seen in the background. Right. A narrow pahoehoe toe flows into a crack on older flows on the coastal plain.

19 December 2008

Royal Gardens breakout and laze plume at Waikupanaha ocean entry

Left. A small breakout on the pali in Royal Gardens. The fuming area in the center of the photograph is the breakout point, and the shiny area below the fume is the active breakout. Right. View of the Waikupanaha ocean entry and laze plume from the west. The plume was large and vigorous this morning, and the entry point was hosting small littoral explosions.

Overhung Halema`uma`u vent likely to collapse

Left. Aerial view of the vent in Halema`uma`u. The vent is roughly circular and about 100 yards across-that's goal-line to goal-line of a regulation football field. Right. The crater floor-side of the vent is still significantly overhung. This lip of the vent is likely to collapse in the coming weeks to months.

5 December 2008

Dust-blanketed crater rim severely overhung

Left. Several collapses of sections of the vent walls sent out thick clouds of rock dust (lithic ash) on Friday. This dust blanketed the crater rim at, and down-wind from, the closed tourist overlook above the vent, giving everything a sepia coloration. The ash-collection bucket in this photo is actually bright blue, as can be seen around the inner rim of the bucket. Right. Photos of the vent on Friday showed that the northern edge of the opening was severely overhung. A long slice of this overhang, noticeable on the right side of the vent in the photo, collapsed later that night, depositing even more ash on the crater rim.

4 December 2008

Robust brown ash-rich plume at Halema`uma`u vent....soon after—a dramatic decrease

Left. An ash-rich event from Halema`uma`u's vent occurred today at 9:15am, producing a robust brown plume that drifted over Crater Rim Drive. Right. Following the ash-rich event, the plume vigor decreased dramatically for more than an hour. This photo, taken forty minutes after the start of the event, shows the weak plume that followed the event.

28 November 2008

Views of Halema`uma`u and TEB vents

Left. View of the gas plume rising from the vent in Halema`uma`u. The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO)/Jaggar Museum complex is visible on the bluff at the right side of the photo.Right. Another view of the summit gas plume above Halema`ma`u. The Kilauea Military Camp and the Volcano Golf Course and Subdivision show up to the right side of the photo. Mauna Kea is in the background. HVO and Jaggar Museum are barely visible at almost the dead center of the photo.

Left. The fuming TEB vent, with its small collapse pit, is at the center of the photo. The lava pond at the head of the old perched channel, visible through a skylight when directly overhead (and not visible in this photo) is the fuming area below and to the left of the TEB vent. The fuming areas leading up to the upper left side of the image delineate the trace of the TEB lava tube. The coastline is faintly visible at the extreme upper left.Right. The inflating and advancing flow on the coastal plain is obvious at lower right in the shaded part of the photo. The terminus of the flow, at the bottom of the photo, is about 200 meters from the National Park boundary.

20 November 2008

Aerial/infrared view of Halema`uma`u vent

An aerial view of the Halema`uma`u Overlook vent. The infrared (IR) image on the right allows us to see through the fume into the vent.

Infrared image of Royal Gardens

For the past several weeks, flows have been active in Royal Gardens and at the base of the pali, slowly expanding across the coastal plain. The IR image shows the active and recently active breakouts; the hottest (most active) areas are shown in shades of yellow.

18 November 2008

Advancing flow at TEB, and the oozing, blue glassy pahoehoe

Left. Active flows fed by a western branch of the TEB lava tube continue to cross the coastal plain on the west side of the current TEB flow field. Activity is scattered across much of this new flow branch, but is mostly confined to within about 1 km from the base of the pali. This photo shows the typical activity seen on the advancing flow.Right. In this photo, blue glassy pahoehoe oozes out through cracks on the side of an inflating tumulus.

17 November 2008

View into Halema`uma`u vent

The summit plume rising from the vent below the Halema'uma'u overlook was interrupted several times today by periods of decreased tremor and a correspondingly weak and wispy plume. During these periods, the plume was thin enough that observers were able to see through to the far side of the vent for the first time since it opened in March, 2008. Despite the relatively clear view, the bottom of the vent was still out of sight due to its great depth. This photo was taken from edge of Halema'uma'u just east of the damaged tourist overlook.

14 November 2008

Shifting winds sends plume north and sluggish pahoehoe toes

Left. Shifting winds sent the Halema`uma`u plume north today. This view is from highway 11 at mile marker 25. Right. Flows continue to break out from the TEB tube system on Kilauea's east rift zone. Sluggish pahoehoe toes, like this one, were active on the coastal plain a short distance out from the base of Royal Gardens subdivision.

6 November 2008

TEB flow field activity continues and delta collapse at Waikupanaha entry

Left. Surface activity on the TEB flow field continues but has mostly transitioned out onto the coastal plain at the base of the pali below Royal Gardens. The active flows (light-colored in this image) have traveled about 1.2 km across the flats and are approaching the National Park boundary. Right. A delta collapse occurred sometime since yesterday afternoon (November 5) and this morning. The small delta that had been growing at the Waikupanaha entry, shown in last week's photos, is completely missing today. Unusual seismicity in the area last night between about 11:05 pm and 11:15 pm give a tentative timing of the collapse.

Halema`uma`u bathtub ring

Red arrows point to the "bathtub ring," or high-lava mark, from the 1967-68 eruption in Halema`uma`u Crater. The light-colored ring, composed of rocks altered by acidic gases, is obscured in places by later rockslides from the unstable crater walls.

24 October 2008

Active breakouts in Royal Gardens, bright white object, and lava streams at Waikupanaha ocean entry

Left. Overview of breakouts active in the Royal Gardens subdivision. The source of these flows is at the top of the pali, on the skyline, and their terminus is on the coastal plain below the bottom of the photo. Right. The new flows stand out much better when viewed from the opposite angle. The shiny lobe crossing through the center of the photo was active last week. The red roof to the left of that flow is the last intermittently occupied house in the subdivision.

Left. Most of the active breakouts stretched from Paradise Street, on the right side of the photo, out onto the coastal plain near the base of the pali. The bright white object at the center of the photo is the roof of an unoccupied house that burned sometime in the last 24 hours from lava-sparked fires. Right. The breakouts near the base of the pali were feeding several small channelized `a`a flows, like the one shown here.

Left. Overview of flow field on the coastal plain. The Waikupanaha entry is at left, and the Royal Gardens subdivision is near upper right. Right. Close-up of the Waikupanaha ocean entry. Small lava streams were spread all along the front of the small, but growing delta.

16 October 2008

Impressive channelized `a`a flows in Royal Gardens, and a structure destroyed

Left. Breakouts have been active in the Royal Gardens subdivision throughout the past week. Despite a slight slowdown over the last day or two, Kilauea continues to impress with channelized `a`a flows such as the pictured here. Right. Pahoehoe flows on the west side of the currently active flow field followed an old `a`a flow part-way down the pali. The pahoehoe flows are the gray-colored flows on top of the brown `a`a crossing through the center of the photo. Activity then backed up-slope where trees can be seen burning.

Left. The flows on the west side of the active flow field followed Ali`i Avenue for a short distance, where they destroyed one of the two remaining intermittently occupied structures in the subdivision. In this photo, the house has already been destroyed and active flows are covering other rain tarps and other items. Right. An hour and a half later, nearly everything had been buried and destroyed.

12 October 2008

Movie of the latest explosive eruption from Halema`uma`u

This Quicktime movie (x3 speed) shows the latest explosive eruption from the vent in Halema`uma`u, which occurred at 7:28am. A robust, ash-rich mushroom cloud is ejected, and followed by pulses of hot, glowing gas and particles. The explosion deposited a field of fist-size ejecta around the crater rim.

This is another movie of the October 12 explosive eruption captured by a camera located on the rim of Halema`uma`u just above the vent. The camera was completely engulfed in the ash cloud, turning day to night, then bombarded by falling ejecta.

11 October 2008

Awesome quicktime movie of Halema`uma`u ash-rich pulse!

This Quicktime movie (x3 speed) shows an ash event from the vent in Halema`uma`u, occurring at 3:54 pm. The normally white degassing plume is rapidly overwhelmed with a vigorous ash-rich pulse that rises rapidly from the vent. Red flashes above the vent indicate hot, incandescent material being ejected.

9 October 2008

No changes at Pu`u `Ō `ō, TEB breakout, and channelized flow

Left. There have been no significant changes at Pu`u `Ō `ō for the last several weeks, and the crater remains obscured by heavy fume. Despite the thick fume, some vents within the crater can be roughly located by observing areas where the vigorous fuming rises above the general background level of fume, as can be seen in this photo. Right. A breakout from the TEB tube above Royal Gardens continues to flow down the east margin of the TEB flow field. The terminus, just below the center of the photo, has several small `a`a channels. The upper portion of the breakout has been resurfaced by pahoehoe, and is the slightly darker-colored lava just above photo center. Mauna Kea shines in the background at upper right, and the broad summit of Mauna Loa is at upper left. Pu`u `Ō `ō is the heavily fuming cone near upper left, and the TEB vent is the fume source at top center.

Left. A breakout near the bottom of Royal Gardens reactivated shortly before we flew over this morning. It was feeding a rapidly moving channelized flow heading toward the left (southwest), with part of the breakout pouring back into the lava tube through a skylight. Right. In this close-up, the channelized flow crosses the upper right-hand corner of the photo, though the highlight is at center frame where lava pours back into the tube through a skylight. Very little cooling occurred before lava re-entered the tube giving it a shiny, smooth surface. The big block of cooled lava in the middle of the stream above the skylight is roughly 3 meters across (~10 feet).

3 October 2008

Barely visible lava lake at Halema`uma`u Crater and minor ocean entry at Waikupanaha

Left. The surface of the lava lake in Halema`uma`u Crater was barely visible today through the thick fume. A red tint in the upper right corner of the vent can be seen, but no clear views were captured due to the fume. Right. Lava enters the ocean at Waikupanaha creating a minor ocean entry plume due to a DI event that started yesterday morning. The photo was taken during this morning's overflight when the tilt was at the bottom of the D phase.

Eruption-viewing opportunities change constantly, so refer to this page often. Those readers planning a visit to Kilauea or Mauna Loa volcanoes can get much useful information from Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park.