Apr 30: Pu’u O’o Crater Collapse

The floor of Pu’u O’o collapsed in stages starting at 2PM in the afternoon and evening of April 30. Poor weather, fog and clouds obscured the view, but the thermal webcam positioned on Pu’u O’o’s  north rim captured it. Timelapse April 28-May 1:

This isn’t the first time it’s collapsed. Here’s a regular webcam timelapse movie of Pu’u O’o’s crater floor collapsing on March 5, 2011.

So there’s a chance the lava may return.

 

April 30: Halema’uma’u Lava Lake Before It Dropped

Amateur video of Halema’uma’u lava lake in Overlook Crater, taken by Jeffrey Brown on April 30, 2018.

The week before, the summit had been inflating and the lava lake had been overflowing, as seen on this USGS timelapse video of Halema’uma’u Crater April 25-26.

Map of Halema’uma’u and Kilauea Summit, because it’s a little confusing:

Continue reading April 30: Halema’uma’u Lava Lake Before It Dropped

Apr 28: Pu’u O’o Lava Lake

Pu’u O’o: What it looked like just before it collapsed. See also this USGS timelapse movie of Pu’u O’o’s crater lava lake from March 20-April 18, and a blog post with a few good flyover photos on April 29.

(Pu’u O’o is a large vent on Kilauea’s shoulder that’s been erupting since 1983. See USGS / HVO photo history of the Pu’u O’o eruption.)

End of April: Halema’uma’u Lava Lake Overflows

Halema’uma’u a few days before eruption started…

April 22: USGS Handheld Video of Lava Lake

Excellent overview of lava lake, back wall and crater floor of Halema’uma’u. Shot from crater rim at Halema’uma’u overlook.

USGS: “This video shows an overview of the lake from the Halema‘uma‘u Crater rim, as well as some of the spattering that was occurring on the lake margin on Sunday, April 22.”

Apirl 25: USGS Handheld Video of Lava Lake

You can see how much it overflowed in just 3 days. Taken from crater rim, Halema’uma’u overlook.

USGS: “On Kīlauea Volcano’s summit, the Halema‘uma‘u lava lake’s high standing lake level produced intermittent overflows onto the crater floor. Smaller overflows and spattering have started to build a few discontinuous levees and a spatter cone around the lake margin, shown in these video clips taken from the lakes north and northeastern margin.

April 26: USGS Helicopter Overflight

USGS: “Vigorous overflows from Kīlauea’s summit lava lake covered a large portion of the floor of Halema‘uma‘u this morning. In this video, the view starts from the north and heads south, showing the north and east sides of Halema‘uma‘u crater. During the overflight, a large overflow was active on the north margin of the lava lake, sending a cascade of lava down the elevated lake rim.”

April 25-27 Timelapse From HVO Webcam

USGS: “This time-lapse video from 7:30 p.m. April 25 to 7:30 p.m. April 26 shows Halema‘uma‘u lava lake producing intermittent overflows onto the crater floor. The largest of these flows was from approximately 6:15 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. on April 26 and covered about 90 acres (2/3) of the crater floor.”

 

April 13, 2018: Halema’uma’u Before Everything Changed

[Backdated post] I keep needing to refer back to this April 13, 2018 USGS photo of the summit of Kīlauea and Halemaʻumaʻu Crater before everything changed.

Kilauea summit, April 13, 2018. Original caption on HVO Photo & Video Chronology page: “At the summit of Kīlauea Volcano, the gas plume produced by the Halema‘uma‘u lava lake was blown to the southwest by normal trade wind conditions today. The lake level has been relatively high over the past several weeks and intermittently visible from the Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park Jaggar Museum Overlook. The museum and HVO are perched on the caldera rim (middle right), with the slopes of Mauna Loa visible in the background.” (Full-sized)