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Photo and Video Chronology - Kīlauea - January 29, 2015

January 29, 2015

Active breakouts persist upslope of stalled flow front

 

The leading tip of the June 27th flow has not advanced significantly over the past week, and remains roughly 500 meters (550 yards) upslope of Highway 130, west of the fire and police station. Breakouts persist upslope, however, and these areas of activity can be spotted in this photograph by small smoke plumes where the lava is burning vegetation on the flow margins.
This comparison of a normal photograph and a thermal image shows the position of active breakouts relative to the inactive flow tip. The white box shows the rough extent of the thermal image on the right. In the thermal image, active breakouts are visible as white and yellow areas. Although active breakouts are absent at the inactive tip of the flow, breakouts are present just a short distance behind the tip, and are also scattered further upslope.
This photograph looks downslope, and shows the proximity of the flow front to the highway.
This photograph looks upslope along the ground crack system of Kīlauea's East Rift Zone. A small breakout from the lava tube is burning forest just left of the center of the photograph. In the upper left, thick fume is emitted from Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō. Near the top of the photograph, the snow-covered peak of Mauna Loa can be seen.
In the upslope portion of the June 27th flow field, a breakout was active north of the forested cone of Kahauale‘a. Some of this lava was the "blue glassy" type of pāhoehoe, which often represents lava that has been stored within an inflated flow for several days.
A closer look at the blue glassy type of pāhoehoe, whose color stands out from the more typical black lava surface on the left side of the photo. For scale the photograph width is about two meters (yards).
HVO geologist taking a gps waypoint of the leading edge of the June 27th flow, which consisted of a narrow, sluggish breakout during the afternoon.
One of many small breakouts on the surface of the June 27th flow immediately upslope of the leading edge. Many inflation features are present on the flow, including the tumulus in upper right.

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