Small explosion at Halema‘uma‘u

At 9:48 PM on Friday, August 23, a collapse of a piece of the wall above the lava lake in Halema‘uma‘u triggered a small explosion. The explosion bombarded the rim of Halema‘uma‘u around the old visitor overlook with molten gobs of spatter as big as dinner plates. Dense lithic fragments from the collapsed wall, and at least as large as a baseball, were also thrown back out of the vent and onto the rim. This image was recorded by a webcam positioned on the rim of Halema‘uma‘u, about 120 m (395 ft) above the lake surface. The smaller time-stamp at the upper left corner is the correct acquisition time (the larger time-stamp is based on the camera clock, which drifts over time).