Fissure 8’s still doing its thing, fountaining 150-180 feet overnight with 164 foot spatter cone. The usual minor spillovers on the channel to the ocean. Today the lava’s entering the ocean mostly on the south side of the lava delta in the vicinity of Vacationland. Fissure 16/18 are still oozing, and fissure 6 (the bright spot to the left of Fissure 8 on the LERZ webcam at night) is intermittently incandescent or spattering. Both are “forming small lava flows on top of the existing flows.”
USGS on Facebook: “About midday, minor amounts of lava spilled over the channel levees but did not advance very far. USGS image taken June 18, 2018 of the upper flow field, just downstream from fissure 8. The ocean entry is marked by a visible plume in the upper left.”
The summit’s daily explosion occurred at 6:12 am, moment magnitude 5.3. It produced a “very small, minor plume that went no more than 500 meters above the ground.” (Brian Shiro in 11AM conference call):
I rewound the Kilauea livestream to watch. The crater was steaming with small white puffy clouds of morning condensation. I saw the window frame vibrate, but the short-lived plume of ash/steam obscured the crater rim, so I didn’t spot any downdrops or rockfalls like we’ve seen for the past few days.
Below: Lots of great photos of summit and LERZ lava field today, and excellent Q&As from USGS on social media.
Fissure8’s “three closely space fountains” are starting to climb down, reported at 115-130 feet last night, and “fluctuating heights from below the 115 ft high spatter cone around it up to 180 feet” this afternoon. But its lava flow is still full to its banks, entering the ocean in Kapoho with minor steam explosions. “Weak lava activity” was spotted at fissure 16/18 last night.
USGS: “The three closely spaced lava fountains at fissure 8 reached maximum heights of 115-130 feet overnight. Lava fragments falling from the fountains are building a cinder-and-spatter cone around the erupting vent, with the bulk of the fragments falling on the downwind side of the cone. Fissure 8 continues to feed a channelized lava flow that reaches the ocean at Kapoho.” (Full-sized)
Last night, Kilauea’s summit hiccuped: there was a small explosion at 12:46am, after which, seismicity did not drop off until after another, larger explosion at 4:43am like the ones we’ve seen lately (registered as M5.4).
USGS: “A series of wide-angle webcam images, captured by a camera in HVO’s observation tower between June 1 and June 10, 2018, show ongoing subsidence around Halema‘uma‘u at the summit of Kīlauea in this animated GIF.” (Full-sized)
Since Saturday, Fissure 8’s gas emissions have been much higher than last week, whereas summit SO2 is half what it was before the current eruption. (I’m not sure why HVO’s Kilauea alerts report “volcanic gasses” for one and only SO2 for the other.)
(The “Lava Livestream” house is still safe, if marooned, near white mast):
USGS: “Aerial view of the fissure 8 lava channel on Kīlauea Volcano’s lower East Rift Zone in the vicinity of the Kapoho cone, with fissure 8 fountains visible in the distance (upper left). Helicopter overflights of the eruption site are routinely scheduled to check for any new outbreaks of lava and to collect GPS data on the active flow—information that’s needed to make the flow field maps that are posted on HVO’s website” (Full-sized)
Here’s a double feature from Mick Kalber’s daily overflights— below is his June 11 lava video, but I missed his June 10 flyover vid and lava update notes.
Below the cut: more great images, overflight vids, and some interesting USGS answers to questions on social media.
Lava reached Kapoho Bay on Saturday night, around 10:30. By Tuesday morning, it was Kapoho Point. There were hundreds of homes here, plus farms, tidepools, and marine life.
There was another small predawn ash explosion up at Kilauea’s summit, where we can now watch the changes to Halema’uma’u Crater (see below). HI Civil Defense, the Dept. of Health and EPA have set up a new network of sensors to monitor and report air quality in realtime, which should help the rest of the island.
But Vacationland and Kapoho Beach Lots have now followed the 1960 village of Kapoho into memory.
Of course, that’s not the whole story for today. There’s new images and videos, USGS updates and info, articles on the eruption’s impact from local Hawaiian news outlets, and eyewitness reports and reactions on social media. So here’s the usual daily roundup of Kilauea eruption news.
