Satellite image around front of Kīlauea's ERZ lava flow

This map uses a satellite image acquired in March 2014 (provided by Digital Globe) as a base to show the area around the front of Kīlauea's active East Rift Zone lava flow. The area of the flow on December 9, 2014, at 2:30 PM is shown in pink, while advancement of the flow as mapped on the ground on December 12 at 10:00 AM is shown in red. This represents an advancement of 0.9 km (~0.6 miles) in slightly less than 3 days.

The active tip of the flow was about 2.6 km (~1.6 miles) from the upslope edge of the Pahoa Marketplace along the path of steepest descent that the flow is currently following. Tick marks have been placed along the steepest-descent path at an interval of 0.4 miles, measured from Pahoa Marketplace. The front of the flow was at 19.493432, -154.978043 (Decimal Degrees) at an elevation of about 250 meters (~820 ft).

The blue lines show steepest-descent paths calculated from a 1983 digital elevation model (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.