Tag: lava flow

May 21: Daily Roundup, Fire & Water Edition

Mick Kalber’s daily helicopter flyover includes some intense views of the rivers of lava heading into the ocean, and the big complex of fountains— 20? 22? we’re starting to lose track— that have dominated the Lava Livestream With Rooster for the last several days.

May 21 Fissure Map (USGS Maps page)

The USGS thermal scan is very informative, too: an infrared satellite detects heat sources (the whiter the image, the hotter it is), and USGS then overlays it on a daylight satellite image of same area. Result, accurate map of where the main flows are, even when they crust over so the lava inside is hidden:

May 21 Heat map of today’s flows (USGS Maps page)

Below the cut: a digest of the day’s eruption news, USGS updates (summarized), and striking social media images and video clips like this:

Continue reading May 21: Daily Roundup, Fire & Water Edition

May 20: Changeover to “Fresher, Hotter Lava”

Monday night, Meteorologist Malika Dudley explains to the BBC how and why the lava erupting in Puna has changed, summarizing USGS findings:

May 20: Sunday Eve News/Images Roundup

Today’s big activities were: (1) massive lava fountains/flows in the Lower East Rift Zone/Lower Puna, entering the ocean at two points (2 modest ash explosions from Halema’uma’u crater (they looked to me like the 10,000 foot range). I’m going to stop worrying about whether they’re triggered by steam explosions or rockfalls.

Late afternoon HNN update includes footage of lava entry into ocean:

Oh good, Mick’s posted the day’s flyover. Noisy helicopter, incredible views:

Also, the lava livestream continues. Someone posted a screencap with USGS scientists working below Fissure 20, giving a sense of scale:

KITV archived HVO’s afternoon alert:

Continue reading May 20: Sunday Eve News/Images Roundup

May 20: Lava Reaches The Ocean

There’s two lava livestreams on Youtube this morning, same location, Honolulu CivilBeat mostly focusing on Fissure 20,  ~1000 yards away. WXchasing moving camera more often [ETA: WX stream now archived]. HCB said Fissure 17 (3/5 a mile away) has built up a cinder cone 300 feet tall.

Last night, Fissure 20’s lava flow crossed Highway 137 and reached the ocean at 11PM, leaving some Puna residents with one escape route. Filed under “things I didn’t know,” Civil Defense warns of “Laze,” a spray of hot steam, hydrochloric acid, and “fine glass particles” when lava hits seawater.

Also filed under “things I didn’t know”: “Methane gas, produced as lava buries vegetation, can migrate in subsurface voids and explode when heated.” (USGS)

May 19: Lava, Lava Everywhere

This… is just incredible.

The first two weeks of sputtering fissures, slow-moving flows were prelude. Thursday night, the rivers and fountains of runny pahoehoe lava arrived. Today, Saturday afternoon, the overflight videos are historic.

From USGS (loud helicopter):

Fissures 16-20 joined up this Saturday and are marching towards the ocean, expected to cross Highway 137 tonight. Civil defense warns to keep away from ocean entry, if/when the lava reaches the shore, to avoid “laze.”

From Mick Kalber:

I have no words.

Well, okay, I do. I hope everyone down there is safely away. It’s been a hard day for a bunch of people who can’t go home now.

May 19: Rivers of Lava, Fissure 20 Races for Ocean

HNN posted a brief video recap of some of the incredible lava river/fountains last night, identifying it as Lanipuna Gardens (I wasn’t sure.)

Today, Honolulu Civil Beat just left the camera on, and the lava just keeps coming.

Yep, Rusty the Rooster is still trying to tell us it’s morning.

However, despite using a still from dawn Friday morning showing Fissure 17 at its most glorious, its cinder cone is now much higher than it is.

Late Saturday, HCB Livestream screencap. Fissure 17 dwarfed by its cinder cone now.

Friday night it was incredibly spectacular, but by Saturday the group of combined fountains at Fissure 20 had taken the spotlight, sending vast amounts of Pahoehoe down to the ocean. That said, 17 continued be loud; it’s the one that sounds like a thundering detonation or jet engine in short, loud bursts.

May 13: Fissure 17 Starts

I’ve not covered every single fissure: see the HVO Photo/Multimedia blog, the HVO timeline, KITV, and HawaiiNewsNow for fissure-by-fissure coverage, not to mention HNN reporter Milika Lincoln’s Instagram vids and photos, and Mike Kalbers’ wonderful daily flyovers.

Activity ebbed and flowed, some days with more steam, some with more spatter. For the most part, lava flows didn’t go very far, and were largely sticky, clumpy, clanky a’a. But I bookmarked fissure 17 early on for particularly dramatic fountains (those blocks it’s hurling are called “lava bombs”) and incredible booms and roars:

#LeilaniEstatesEruption LATEST (May 15 at 8:30 AM): Incredible new sunrise footage captures the sounds and sight of lava fountains and gas bombs erupting from the 17th fissure — which broke out Saturday off of Halekamahina Loop Road northeast of Lanipuna Gardens on the Kalapana side of Highway 132. According to USGS HVO scientists, fissure 17 has created a narrow lava flow heading makai — or downslope toward the ocean — and has already covered about two miles. Civil Defense officials say based on their last measurement, this flow front is now a little less than a mile from Highway 137. At one point yesterday, it was moving at a rate of about 100 yards an hour, but it has since slowed a bit. The flow has been running roughly parallel to Highway 132 or Pahoa Kapoho Road. Officials say it's heading east in the direction of Kapoho toward Highway 137 — also called Old Government Beach Road, or more commonly referred to by residents as Waa Waa Road. This fissure has already claimed one structure — but officials say there are currently no homes or buildings in its current path. This has been the longest-lasting, most active fissure of the 20 that have opened up since this the first on May 3 along Mohala Street within #LeilaniEstates. Stay tuned to @HawaiiNewsNow for the very latest developments #HInews #HawaiiNews #HNN #HawaiiNewsNow #WeAreYourSource (Video: @bradah.dom / @ikaikamarzo)

A post shared by Mileka Lincoln (@milekalincoln) on

and it was the first one that really seemed to be making a run for the ocean and creating a sustained lava flow.

Here’s May 13 and 14th flyovers from Mick Kalber:

Luckily, it chose a route that doesn’t have many houses downslope. And unlike other fissures, it just kept going and going.

And (since I’m posting this backdated): it’s still going on May 19, after making quite an impressive lava fountain and cinder cone for itself over the past two nights.

Dec 2011: Lava from Pu’u O’o Entering Ocean

Video by Bryan Lowry of Lavapix.com in 2011.

Back when Pu’u O’o was healthy, it sent lava flows south down the flanks of Kilauea to the ocean, mostly away from populated areas (although unfortunately it did take out the community of Kalapana plus the half-built Royal Gardens Subdivision). See HVO’s photo history of Pu’u O’o from 1983 to the present.