Volcano Watch — Mauna Loa rumbled and stretched as it awakened from a 25-year slumber

Attributing it to the camp stove, he rolled over and went back to sleep. But within half an hour, all 10 hikers in the cabin, including Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park Ranger Bill Fink, were wide awake, watching in awe as a red-orange glow lit the night sky.

After a 25-year-long slumber, Mauna Loa was erupting! Ranger Fink radioed Park Headquarters with the news, but Park officials, contacted earlier by the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO), were already aware of the eruption.

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The first signs of Mauna Loa's awakening were detected in 1974. Seismicity beneath the volcano's summit increased in April and persisted throughout the year, with earthquakes numbering from many hundreds to over a thousand per day. At the same time, geodetic monitoring networks revealed significant expansion across Moku‘āweoweo, Mauna Loa's summit caldera.

With heightened seismicity and summit inflation - both indicators of magma movement toward the surface - the potential for an eruption increased. So, HVO stepped up its surveillance of Mauna Loa and, by June 1975, had installed additional monitoring instruments on the volcano.

Surprisingly, in the week prior to the eruption, daily earthquake counts were relatively low. But around 10:50 p.m., H.s.t., on Saturday, July 5, shallow seismicity beneath Moku‘āweoweo increased sharply. Soon thereafter, harmonic tremor began and quickly increased to a level that obscured individual earthquakes on the seismic records.

At 11:18 p.m., the sustained high-amplitude seismic activity triggered alarms in the homes of two HVO scientists, who reached HVO in a matter of minutes. Realizing the imminent possibility of a Mauna Loa eruption, they immediately notified Park and Civil Defense authorities.

At 11:42 p.m., scientists at HVO noticed a small glow above Mauna Loa. In less than two minutes, a bright red-orange glow outlined the entire summit region, illuminating a fume cloud that rose thousands of meters (yards) above the volcano.

The source of the glow and fume - lava fountains within Moku‘āweoweo - could not be seen by observers at HVO or at Pu‘u ‘Ula‘ula. For direct observation of the eruption, aerial reconnaissance was needed, and, by 1:50 a.m., July 6, HVO scientists were flying over the summit in a light plane.

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Fissures erupting fountains of lava 20-40 m (65-130 ft) high extended across the length of Moku‘āweoweo and about 1 km (0.6 mi) down the volcano's southwest rift zone. Lava had flooded more than half the caldera floor and was cascading into three pit craters on the upper southwest rift zone.

At 2:00 a.m., as HVO scientists continued their aerial observations, eruptive fissures opened in Mauna Loa's northeast rift zone. Voluminous ‘a‘ā flows fed by these fissures moved swiftly down the north and northeast flanks of the volcano, putting the Mauna Loa Observatory access road in jeopardy and downslope residents on alert.

By dawn, the caldera and southwest rift zone fissures had stopped erupting, but the northeast rift zone fissures remained active for another 12 hours. ‘A‘ā lava eventually overran parts of the summit hiking and jeep trails but did not cut off the Mauna Loa Observatory road. Fortunately, the potentially hazardous flows stagnated and ultimately stopped long before reaching inhabited areas.

The eruption ended around 7:30 p.m. on July 6 - less than 24 hours after it began - but for Park Ranger Fink, the drama wasn't over. He spent an unexpectedly exciting Sunday night alone at Pu‘u ‘Ula‘ula, with small earthquakes rumbling through the cabin every few minutes. Except for anxiety and loss of sleep, he was unscathed and was picked up by helicopter the next day.

With the center of seismicity shifting to Mauna Loa's northeast rift zone, HVO scientists and public safety officials remained on 24-hour watch, concerned that a possible lower-elevation eruption could threaten Hilo. Their worry lessened on July 10, when seismic activity noticeably waned. By July 20, seismicity had returned to pre-eruption levels, and the summit had stopped inflating.

Mauna Loa slept once again, but only until March 1984, when it erupted for 22 days. Since then, Mauna Loa has been quiet, exceeding its 25-year-long slumber prior to the 1975 eruption.

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Volcano Activity Update

Over the past week, activity on the east rift zone flow field remained focused on the construction of low lava shields high above the pali. Some lava flows shed from the shields likely advanced a short distance toward the south and southeast, but none were reported to have crested the top of the pali. No surface flows have been reported on the pali or coastal plain for the last several weeks. The only incandescence observed at Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō crater was from a small opening midway up the vertical eastern wall of the crater.
At Kīlauea's summit, a circulating lava pond deep in the collapse pit within the floor of Halema‘uma‘u Crater was visible via the Webcam throughout the past week. The baseline lava level was punctuated sporadically by short-lived lava-level increases. Volcanic gas emissions remain elevated, resulting in high concentrations of sulfur dioxide downwind.

Two earthquakes beneath Hawai‘i Island were reported felt during the past week. A magnitude-2.7 earthquake occurred at 1:51 a.m. on Tuesday, June 29, 2010 H.s.t., and was located 13 km (8 miles) west of Ka`ena Point at a depth of 7 km (5 miles). A magnitude-3.6 earthquake occurred at 8:55 a.m. on the same day and was located 10 km (6 miles) northwest of Ka‘ena Point at a depth of 35 km (22 miles).