An official website of the United States government
Here's how you know
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock () or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.
Lava lake level remains high, rockfall triggers explosive event
A rockfall from the wall of Halema‘uma‘u Crater impacted the lava lake around 10:20 am, triggering an explosion of spatter and smaller particles. HVO geologists working on the far side of the crater captured the initial moments of the plume rising. The explosion deposited a large amount of spatter around the closed Halema‘uma‘u visitor overlook.
Quicktime movie of the rockfall and subsequent explosion at 10:20 a.m., HST, on April 28, 2015. Rocks falling into the summit lava lake generated an explosion that threw large fragments of molten lava onto the rim of Halema‘uma‘u Crater, 85 m (280 ft) above the lake. These fragments pose a significant hazard, and are one reason this area remains closed.
A closer look at the Halema‘uma‘u Crater overlook. The large boulders were ejected during the 1924 explosion, but today's explosive event carpeted the ground with many large pieces of brown spatter.
A close look at one of the large pieces of spatter thrown onto the rim of Halema‘uma‘u Crater by today's explosion (keys are for scale). The spatter hit the ground in a semi-fluid state, deforming on impact. The small, multi-colored particles incorporated in the spatter are fragments of the altered crater wall that collapsed into the lake, while the brown spatter represents fresh lava from the lake.
The explosion threw spatter that hit the remaining fencing on the Halema‘uma‘u overlook, partly burning it. Keys for scale.
Portions of the Halema‘uma‘u overlook fencing were knocked down by previous explosive events, and also by the wind over the past several years. The downed fencing, shown smoldering here, was then ignited by hot spatter from today's explosive event.
Spatter from the explosion also landed on the Halema‘uma‘u webcam, melting some of the wire insulation but not enough to interrupt its operation.
Gas in the lava lake was rapidly released during the 10:20 am explosive event, causing the lava lake surface to drop a few meters (yards). This photo was taken moments after the explosive event, and shows the overhanging ledge of lava along the rim that was exposed as the lava level dropped.
Early this morning, prior to the explosive event at 10:20 am, the lake was close to the floor of Halema‘uma‘u Crater, with spattering along the lake margin.
This photo shows another view of the lava lake, from a different perspective, when it was at its highest level.
This photo shows the lava lake in the Overlook crater this morning, when it reached to within 3 m (10 ft) of the floor of Halema‘uma‘u. This is the highest the lava lake has reached during the current summit eruption.
This is a view of spattering at the east corner of the lava lake this morning.
Another view of spattering this morning.
Get Our News
These items are in the RSS feed format (Really Simple Syndication) based on categories such as topics, locations, and more. You can install and RSS reader browser extension, software, or use a third-party service to receive immediate news updates depending on the feed that you have added. If you click the feed links below, they may look strange because they are simply XML code. An RSS reader can easily read this code and push out a notification to you when something new is posted to our site.
