June 3: Kapoho’s Lava Woes and Guatemala’s Heartbreak

I write with a heavy heart tonight.

While Kilauea claims homes, possessions, and places people loved— and animals, sadly— it’s a relatively benign volcano (as long as it remains in its lava-gushing “effusive phase”). Its “ballistic rocks” can’t fly much farther than half a mile. Ash and vog hamper quality of life, but aren’t instantly deadly. Its lava moves slowly enough for people to escape. Lava creates new land while it destroys, and it breaks down eventually into fertile soil. While it’s destructive, it’s also beautiful:

This is a "waterfall" of lava pouring into Green Lake that is inside the Kapoho Crater on Green Mountain. The lake…

Posted by Don Hurzeler on Sunday, June 3, 2018

That’s the life’s blood of a shield volcano like Kilauea. But there’s another kind of volcano I’ve mentioned before: stratovolcanoes like Krakatoa and Mount St. Helens. Their silica-rich, stiff, sticky lava piles up into steep mountains that can bottle up tremendous pressure before letting go. I’m afraid that’s probably what happened in Guatemala today.

Careless news media (even the BBC!) are claiming that a river of lava from volcan del Fuego killed over 20 people and injured dozens more. But all the videos I saw (apart from videos of Leilani Estates passed off as Guatemala) show pyroclastic flows:

Not that scary-looking, eh? But nighttime shows the true face of a pyroclastic flow (Sinabung, Indonesia).

Dr. Janine Krippner pointed out this brief informative video explaining what pyroclastic flows are and why they’re so dangerous. Here’s the Spanish language version. Hearing-impaired? See What Is a Pyroclastic Flow? or ¿Qué son los flujos piroclásticos?

Please spare some compassionate thoughts for the Guatemalans caught in this eruption. Most of them probably thought those gray clouds were just (cooled) ash, like what’s irritating Hawaiians living downwind from Halema’uma’u. (No, Kilauea’s not going to do that.)

Today’s kilauea eruption summary
USGS caption: “Photo from 7AM helicopter overflight, hovering offshore and looking up the flowfront. Nearly all of the front was active and advancing; advance rates were estimated at an average of 250 feet/hour (76 m/hr), and as of 7AM the flow was 500 yards (457 m) from the ocean.” (Full-sized)

As for Kilauea, the main news today was fissure 8’s lava flow making its finall approach to the shore through the Kapoho Beach Lots/Vacationland area.

And as if in response to news media headlines claiming it’s “fallen quiet,” the summit woke up again with a whole popcorn-popper’s worth of earthquakes, including a beefy M5.5 in the afternoon and an ash cloud rising to 8,000 feet.

Here’s my daily digest of Kilauea eruption news, including:

  • Updates/info from the USGS and other geologists
  • eruption news from Hawaii Civil Defense
  • Local news stations covering the eruption and its impact
  • relevant social media posts by informed eyewitnesses

Continue reading June 3: Kapoho’s Lava Woes and Guatemala’s Heartbreak

May 24: USGS Acquires Drones, Leilani Estates Acquires Lava Lake

Before this, the main thing USGS was using drones for was LIDAR, but today’s Photo & Multimedia entry on HVO’s website provides drone footage for both the summit steam/ash plume and Leilani/Puna lava flows.

SUMMIT ERUPTION:

This video was filmed on May 21, 2018, with a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle). Limited UAV flights above the hazardous Kīlauea summit area, which is currently too dangerous for geologists to enter for ground observations, are conducted with permission from the National Park Service. […] At Kīlauea Volcano’s summit, a nearly continuous plume of gas and steam billows out of the Overlook vent and drifts with the wind. Explosions are occurring about two times a day, producing ash that rises to a height of between 8,000 to 10,000 feet above sea level. Small ash emissions occur more frequently. The larger explosions produce ash that is blown downwind, and trace amounts have fallen in nearby communities.

Addendum: there was a 6PM 10,000 foot ash explosion & plume this evening (Civil Defense photo, USGS video), sending ash southwest.

PUNA LAVA ERUPTION:

This footage is from an Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) hovering near fissure 22 during the overnight hours of May 22, 2018, and looking down on the fountaining fissure complex. The view rotates upward (to the south) to track channelized lava as it flows toward the Pacific Ocean, about 3 mi (5 km) away. The ocean entry is in the distance, recognizable by a small plume. The USGS National Unmanned Aircraft Systems Project Office is assisting with remote data collection and mapping of lava flows and hazards…

HVO’s Photo & Multimedia blog also posted impressive Hilo Civil Air Patrol aerial photos of the lava rivers from yesterday, as well as an image of Fissure 22 taking a nap (it’s still going but lower today on Civil Beat’s Livestream) while the fissures west of it (and uprift) that activated yesterday inundated Leilani Estates.

As an aside: people keep posting ridiculous rumors, so the USGS had to reassure everybody that Mauna Loa is NOT erupting.

Latest video this evening from HNN reporter Mileka Lincoln:

Earlier in the day… welcome to the Leilani Estates Lava lake. (warning: noisy)

The residents are being absolute champs in coping with this. Here’s another video clip of the lava lake with the homeowner whose home is just outside of it. They’re very philosophical, realizing they took a gamble, which is more mature than some of the people criticizing them for taking a chance on a place that hasn’t had an eruption in about 60 years. And they’re helping one another.

Oh, my mistake. It’s a lava pond.

Mick Kalber’s helicopter overflight video today does a great job of showing the “pond,” the fissures headed from there past the geothermal plant, and the lava rivers flowing south from those fissures towards the ocea.

USGS Updates, News Roundup, And More Vivid Videos:

Continue reading May 24: USGS Acquires Drones, Leilani Estates Acquires Lava Lake

May 15: Still Not the Big One

May 15, 11:05 AM: A major ash explosion up to 12,000 feet — which HVO still guesses was caused by rockfall into the receding lava lake— prompted HVO to raise the aviation alert level to RED, warning aircraft to stay away from the summit and ash hazards.

Unfortunately, news media took this RED ALERT to be “major eruption imminent,” instead of “no more imminent than it already is, since, as a matter of fact, it’s already erupting. But it could increase activity.”

USGS Geologist @DrJanineKrippner has been playing whack-a-mole on Twitter rumors and addressed “Kilauea’s Alert Level Was Just Raised To Red – But What Does That Actually Mean?” on IFLScience, reiterating that it was mostly an aviation alert. So did volcanologist Erik Klemetti, with a good writeup of today’s steam explosions and fissure activity on his Rocky Planet blog.