Map of flow field

This map shows recent changes to Kīlauea's East Rift Zone lava flow field. The area of the active flow field as of December 14 is shown in pink, while widening and advancement of the active flow as of January 12 is shown in red. Older Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō lava flows (1983-2016) are shown in gray. Surface flows are focused on a branch of the flow east of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō that has been active since late last year. The front of that flow branch has stalled, but there are weak scattered breakouts upslope along its length.

Disregard the area around the Kamokuna ocean entry, where the Kamokuna lava delta collapsed on New Year's Eve. The lava flow polygons in these maps are layered to show additions to flow. As such, they do not show where material has been removed, such as by lava delta collapse.

The blue lines over the Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō flow field are steepest-descent paths calculated from a 2013 digital elevation model (DEM), while the blue lines on the rest of the map are steepest-descent paths calculated from a 1983 DEM (for calculation details, see http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2007/1264/). Steepest-descent path analysis is based on the assumption that the DEM perfectly represents the earth's surface. DEMs, however, are not perfect, so the blue lines on this map can be used to infer only approximate flow paths. The base map is a partly transparent 1:24,000-scale USGS digital topographic map draped over the 1983 10-m digital elevation model (DEM).