Tag: mauna loa

June 22: Four Weeks of Changes at Kilauea Summit

Today’s Eruption Summary
USGS: ” Lava continues to erupt at a high rate from Fissure 8 and flow within the established channel to the ocean. No channel overflows were observed during this morning’s overflight. The fountains have built a horseshoe-shaped cone as lava fragments are intermittently hurled onto and over the growing rim. Lava exiting the cone forms a series of standing waves in the uppermost section of the channel.” (Full-sized)

Fissure 8 continues as usual, sending its lava river down to the ocean at Kapoho, with a “dominant ocean entry on the south edge of the flow front…producing a large laze plume.” Minor, brief overflows upstream aren’t traveling past previous lava flows. Fissure 6 is inactive; 16 incandescent; 22 woke up and was fountaining weakly during  the USGS morning overflight.

USGS: “Halema’uma’u crater at 8:30 a.m., view is toward the south. Several benches are clearly visible within the crater. The benches are sections of the former crater rim and adjacent Kīlauea caldera floor that have incrementally dropped or slumped into the crater as the summit area has subsided since early May.” (Full-sized)

Seismicity at the summit was “elevated overnight” according to today’s only HVO status update at 8:45 am. There appeared to be a lot of rockfalls/isolated slippages on the livestream today, especially on the left rim, but the really-truly “collapse explosion” (as USGS is now calling them) occurred at 6:52pm, 5.3 energy equivalent, 500 foot ash plume.

I spent this afternoon putting together a gif of the last 28 days of HVO wide angle Kilauea images, using screencaps I’ve taken supplemented with screengrabs from the same webcam archived by Hawaii247:

Halema’uma’u Crater, May 24-June 22. Animation of screencaps from USGS/HVO Kilauea Summit wide-angle webcam. (Full-sized)

Yikes.

In today’s digest:
  • Video capture of today’s summit explosion (warning: dark)
  • USGS Questions and answers
  • crisp LERZ photos/videos from HCFD
  • Local news stations turning from lava to recovery
  • Double dose of Mick Kalber overflight vids
  • Usual striking images from great photographers

In case you missed it:
Transcriptions of June 19 Steve Brantley Presentation at Puna Community Meeting | June 21 Conference Call

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