Close-up view of active lava flow Halema‘uma‘u, February 24, 2021

In the morning of Tuesday, February 23, a new source of spatter appeared on flank of the active western fissure within Halema‘uma‘u at the summit of Kīlauea. It started to feed a short lava flow down the spatter cone and onto the crusted northwest margin of the lava lake. A field crew on Wednesday observed the flow to be active, and captured this photo through the lens of a laser rangefinder used to measure distances to features within the crater. The fresh, silvery pāhoehoe can be seen descending from the the spatter cone at the left side of the frame. The flow was estimated to be several tens of meters (yards) long at the time, though much of its extent was out-of-view on backside of the cone.