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.
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
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.)
Halema’uma’u a few days before eruption started…
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.”
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.“
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.”
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.”
[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.
