showing recent uplift of the lava lake and crater floor in Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō

Preview image for video: shows the recent uplift of the lava lake and crater floor in Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō crater, captured by a thermal camera on the crater rim. The time-lapse movie spans July 9 to today, July 18, and is looped several times. The uplift was continuous between July 9 and 16, but had stalled by the 17th. Throughout this movie, the lava lake activity in the crater was steady, with lava upwelling in the east portion of the lake (right margin of image) and flowing towards the west end (left), where it would sink. Frequent small spattering events are commonly observed on the lake margins, throwing spatter over the rim. A small collapse of the steep levee wall resulted in a short lived breach of lava out of the lake on July 15. The uplift that this movie shows is probably due to the shallow injection of magma beneath the crater floor. For scale, the lava lake is about 200 meters (660 feet) long and 100 meters (330 feet) wide. The temperature scale is in degrees Celsius.