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Photo and Video Chronology - Kīlauea - January 31, 2013

January 31, 2013

Spatter cone and small lava pond on Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō's crater floor.

Spatter cone and small lava pond on Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō's crater floor

A small lava lake, which has been present on the northeast side of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō's crater floor for nearly a year, has evolved into a tiny pond perched several meters (yards) above the surrounding crater floor, as pictured here. The pond sits near the top of a mound of lava composed of spatter cones and lava pond overflows. Flows from the pond and other nearby spatter cones have inundated the east rim of the crater, which would normally be visible in the background just behind spatter cone complex shown here.
Lava from the tiny lava pond flows directly into a tube on its north side. In this photo, the tube starts at the left edge of the pond and heads toward the heavy fume at the left edge of the photo. This tube carries the lava downslope where it is feeding a slow-moving pāhoehoe flow spreading across a nearly flat-lying plain of ‘A‘ā flows at the northern base of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō.

East side of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō crater; breakout on Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō's northern flow

Since the beginning of the year, lava erupting from several openings in Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō's crater have filled the crater to overflowing. The two eastern-most openings, topped by spatter cones, can be seen in this photo. The one in the background holds the small lava pond shown in the photos above and feeding the northern lava flow. The east rim of the crater, which wraps around from the rim in the foreground (the south rim) to the rim in the background near the upper left side of the photo (the north rim), has been completely buried.
This photo, captured fortuitously, shows a lava flow seconds after it burst from the side of a low tumulus. While initially relatively fast-moving, the flow slowed to a crawl within a few minutes, matching the very slow advancement rate seen elsewhere along the front of the flow.

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