July 16, 2026 — Tephra-blanketed September 1971 spatter cone

During the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory overflight on July 16, scientists flew across Kīlauea's Southwest Rift Zone for measurements of the gas plume drifting downwind of the Halema‘uma‘u eruptive vents. While transiting underneath the plume for upward-looking spectroscopy to determine the summit's sulfur dioxide emission rate, one of the scientists snapped this photo of the main spatter cone from the September 1971 Southwest Rift Zone eruption. This five-day eruption formed a narrow lava-flow field along approximately 5 miles (8 kilometers) of fissures, not spreading far because much of the effused lava poured into open ground cracks along the rift zone. Most of the flow field is now obscured from view due to the tephra blanket that extends across the region from the summit eruption that began in December 2024. USGS photo by M. Zoeller.