Kilauea

Some of the articles you might have missed this week ... A lava flow from Kilauea breaks local traffic laws in the Royal Gardens subdivision, Hawai'i The Mayon Watch continues in the Philippines. No eruption yet, but some of the local newspapers are printing stories talking about "odd animal behavior" and other local "myths" about predicting the volcano, such as the wells drying up. Now, this is not to say that these things might have some predictive value (especially changes in the water table near the volcano as it inflates/deflates), but so far there are no robust scientific studies that I…
All the volcano news that is fit to print, all thanks to the USGS/Smithsonian GVP! Highlights (not include Manda Hararo, Kilauea and Mayon) include San Miguel in El Salvador has been experiencing increased seismicity. The last time the volcano erupted was in 2002. A pilot spotted a ~10,000 foot / 3 km ash plume emanating from Anak Krakatau in Indonesia. Another ash plume, this time at Ubinas, Peru, was spotted by pilots rising to ~6.7-9.1 km / 20-30,000 feet. Explosions were heard from Suwanose-jima in Japan, but no associated ash plumes were spotted. It sounds like a lava dome has been…
A quick update on the rockfall in the Halema`uma`u (got it right this time!) Crater at Kilauea. Last week a rockfall blocked the vent that had been glowing for most of the year from the lava below, but the debris clogged the vent, producing minor accidental tephra explosion. Lava in the recently "clogged" Halema`uma`u vent at Kilauea. Taken July 6, 2009, courtesy of HVO. Well, it didn't take long for lava to retake the "clogged" vent. New video from HVO shows lava bubbling back up through the clogged vent (see the video in the above link). The lava has formed a small lava and even produced…
The Halema'uma'u Crater at Kilauea on June 29, 2009, prior to a rockfall on June 30th that has blocked the vent. Image courtesy of HVO. There is a bit of a buzz today about significant rockfalls that occurred in Halema'uma'u Crater at Kilauea on June 30th. Some articles have suggested that the rockfall has "snuffed out" glowing vent in the Crater. Well, this is partially true. HVO is reporting that the glow that has been seen at Halema`uma`uma has been, in fact, gone since the rockfall. Here is the report of the event: A sequence of rockfalls, some quite large, within the Halema'uma'u vent…
Busy busy analysing on the multicollector ICP-MS today (but not busy enough to miss this). Here's your weekly volcano news roundup from the USGS/Smithsonian GVP. Highlights (not including Sarychev Peak) include: Continued dome growth and degassing at Bezymianny in Russia. Starting next year, there will be live webcams for three of the major volcanoes (Bezymianny, Kliuchevskoi, and Shiveluch) on the Kamchatka peninsula! Now, that is exciting news. The glowing coming from the vent in the Halema'uma'u Crater at Kilauea in Hawai'i is still prominent. The lava levels in the crater have been rising…
I won't try to recap all the news from last week, but I did notice a few articles from this weekend worth noting: The Big Obsidian Flow at Newberry Volcano. This rhyolite lava flow erupted at ~1,300 years ago. Geologists in Greece are keeping an eye on a submarine volcano called Columbus. Apparently a number of M4+ earthquakes have been reported, the sea floor has deformed and there have been "hot air eruption" (? ... I am a little skeptical of the last one without more details). The article is a little fuzzy on the details: the volcano is 6.5 meters southeast of Santorini and the Santorini…
Pohutu Geyser in Rotorua, New Zealand. Image taken by Erik Klemetti in January 2009. It has been busy busy week for me, capped off today with a talk about my field work in New Zealand (see above), so I don't have much to say. Not much new news today about the Saudi Arabian earthquake swarms, but again, I'll keep my eyes pealed (incidentally, I still haven't been able to figure out why no western news sources have even mentioned the swarm). Anyway, here's are some volcanic tidbits to enjoy over the long weekend: Vog, as seen from space. Volcanic fog, fashionably shortened to "vog" is a real…
Some brief tidbits from the volcanic realms: Active volcanism at NW Rota-1 Kilauea? Explosive? You might think of Kilauea as a volcano that generates impressive Hawaiian-style eruptions with fire fountains reaching 100s m and dazzling lava flows, but Don Swanson at HVO sees evidence of a big explosive event at Kilauea. This eruption was ~1,000-1,600 years ago and may have produced a plinian-scale eruptive column and threw cm-scale chunks up to 17 km from the vent. The intermingling of life and active volcanism always seems counterintuitive, but when you're talking undersea volcanism, all…
Has a week gone by already? It is time for another USGS/Smithsonian GVP Weekly Volcano Activity Report. Highlights (beyond Fernandina, Pagan and Redoubt) include: A new underwater eruption at NW-Rota 1 in the Mariana Islands. Increasing seismicity and incandescence from the rhyolite domes forming at Chaiten, Chile. A spike in sulfur dioxide emissions from Kilauea, Hawai'i to 700 tonnes/day (up from a 2003-07 average of 150 tonnes/day). 4.5-7.5 km / 15-26,000 foot ash columns produced at Shiveluch in Kamchatka from new lava dome. Continued dome growth and ~6 km / 26,000 foot ash columns from…
It has been rather quiet on the volcano-front in the last week. Redoubt and Llaima (in spanish), after a few weeks of intense eruption, are both back on Orange Alert. News of the eruptions from Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai and Fernandina is rather sparse in the details. The news of volcanism in 2009 seems to have settled down. A few tidbits I caught over the weekend: ChaitenDamage wrought by the eruption of Chaiten on the town of Chaiten in Chile, taken in early December 2008. Image courtesy of the NASA Earth Observatory. Don't you feel like you're read this sort of story before after other…
Busy day so I probably won't get to update much as we're busy hosting Dr. Charlie Bacon, geologist for the USGS, here at UC Davis today. Dr. Bacon has written some seminal papers in his career and is probably the foremost authority of the evolution of Crater Lake/Mt. Mazama (speaking of which, >a new geologic map for the Park was recently released) and the caldera-forming eruption. He's also a really nice guy. If you want to read some of his papers, you might try these: Bacon, C.R., Implications of silicic vent patterns for the presence of large crustal magma chambers, in: D.P. Hill, R.A.…
Canlaon volcano, Philippines Geothermal energy is one of those sources of energy that might be able to solve a lot of the planet's energy problems - heck, the Earth has a lot of heat it is trying to get rid of, so taking that heat and turning into energy seems like an easy (and clean?) way to stop using fossil fuels and the like. Of course, like any supposed panacea, it has its problems. However, one aspect that gets people are riled is whether drilling into areas of active magmatism might actually cause volcanism. Just in the last few weeks, a controversy was sparked in the Philippines when…
Photos by Dr. Edward Kohut, all rights reserved, used by permission, 2009 Many times people think that volcanic eruptions affect the economy through the destruction inflicted upon the landscape during an eruption: lahars and pyroclastic flows destroying bridges and homes, ash ruining crops and water, lava flows overunning communities. However, in Hawai'i, a new effect of volcanism has been seen in the agriculture of the state. The volcanic fog - or "vog" as its called - has been causing major problems with farms on the Big Island of Hawai'i. Since the new activity at Halemaumau (see above)…
Lava issuing from the current eruptions at Kilauea have started a third ocean entry (and the second within the Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park). The entry is not as dramatic as some, forming a slow, dripping entry of lava into the ocean (see linked video footage), but every little drip adds a little more land to the big island of Hawai'i. In some other Hawaiian volcano news, the USGS have also posted a video showing the filling and draining of the lava lake in Halemaumau that started last year. Usually, the crater was surrounded by steam and fumes from the degassing magma, but the thermal…
Although this news isn't as threatening as the title of the article implies: HAWAII LAVA FLOW NEARS NATIONAL PARK, it is still some news as it could be the first lava flow to cross into the park in over a lava. The flow itself is headed towards what is called the "Waikupanaha ocean entry" on the southeast side of the island. The lava flow has about one mile to go before it reaches the Pacific Ocean, but it has travelled several hundred feet (maybe 100 meters) over the last 10 days according to Park Rangers and USGS geologists monitoring the flow's progress. Of course, compared to your…
The headline for this entry sounds more dramatic than it is, but one of the last structures in the ill-fated Royal Gardens subdivision on the big island of Hawai'i finally met its fiery demise over the weekend. For those of you unfamiliar with the plight of the subdivision, Royal Gardens is part of Kalapana, and it was unfortunately situated quite close to the Pu'u O'o rift that has been erupting since 1983. Most of the subdivision has been overrun by lava flows since then, but one of the last two structures still being used was done in by the basaltic lava. The first link has a great map…
On Sunday afternoon, a large ash eruption occurred at Halemaumau Caldera at Kilauea. Not only did the volcano belch more grey ash than usual, but also red-hot incandescent material can be clearly seen being thrown from the vent during the vigorous eruption. The coolest thing about the eruption is that it was all caught on film by the USGS/HVO. Take a look (at three times speed) - this video is from the morning of October 12, but there are a series of video from the whole weekend on the website.
Not sure how it was kept quiet for most of the week (well, at least to me), but geologists at the HVO have noticed a new lava lake in Halemaumau Caldera on Kilauea (Hawai'i). The lava lake is around 330 feet (~100 meters) below the crater rim and ~160 feet (50 meters) across with sections of reddish, glowing lava and black crust on the surface. It seems that an explosion on Tuesday helped reveal the lava lake from the surface. The USGS has posted some video of the lava lake for your enjoyment. There are only a few active lava lakes worldwide (such as those at Villarrica in Chile and Erebus…
Not to feel left out from all the action going on in Alaska, Kilauea in Hawai'i has a new lava flow issuing from the Thankgiving Eve Breakout (TEB) vent area. It sounds like a fairly small flow and none of the flows have reached the ocean. The TEB was the November 21, 2007 event where activity migrated away from the Pu'u O'o area to a new vent to the east.
  Kilauea is busy keeping geologists and tourists alike wondering what the volcano will be doing next. The current report on the volcano tells of a new fire fountain at the Thanksgiving Eve Break-out "rootless cone", about 6 miles from the ocean. The fire fountain started on Sunday night, issuing lava up to 40 feet in the air and the USGS has posted an amazing video of the fountaining on the HVO website. However, unlike the predicted behavior where magma at Kilauea starts near the summit and moves into the rifts, these lavas appear to be unrelated to the activity going on at the summit of…