Volcano Watch — Volcano Watch (no. 3)

The U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory reports that Kīlauea Volcano continues to erupt from both the Kupaianaha vent on the East Rift Zone and from a new fissure that opened between Pu`u `O`o and Kupaianaha on [Friday] Nov. 8 before dawn. 

Volcanic tremor, indicative of underground magma migration, continues at moderate levels beneath the summit and upper East Rift Zone, but the tremor amplitude has decreased continuously since Wednesday. On Nov. 15, the summit began to inflate after one week of subsidence, perhaps signaling that the eruption will end soon.

The new eruptive episode, episode 49, is ongoing from one of the more easterly fissures in what began as a discontinuous, nearly 1-mile long series of fissures. Overnight last Sunday, a pond that had formed to the northeast of the eastern fissures drained into a rapidly advancing `a`a flow and the low fountains had again emerged above the subsided pond. By the end of the week there was no fountaining, but instead quiet effusion of lava directly into a 100-foot wide channel feeding the flows downslope. 

By late Monday the flows had advanced about two miles downslope and were at the top of the Royal Gardens Subdivision at about the 1,300-foot level. By Wednesday morning the flows had advanced an additional 650 feet into Royal Gardens, but were moving sluggishly. Since then, the flow front has been stagnant. The `a`a flow is slowly getting wider and thicker and several active branches have developed near its lower end.

During the fissure eruption, Kupaianaha vent has continued to erupt lava that is transported downslope through a tube system. The active pahoehoe flows are located along the eastern margin of Royal Gardens at roughly the 1,200-foot level.

The active lava pond within the Pu`u `O`o vent, that was about 175 feet below the lowest point on the rim of the cone before the eruption began, drained an additional 100 feet. No pond was visible by Monday. Numerous rockfalls continue to occur in Pu`u `O`o from the unstable walls of the crater.