Drainback Event During Refilling of Pu'u 'O'o Crater (July 5-6, 2007)

On June 17-19, 2007, and intrusion into Kilauea's upper east rift zone led to the cessation of eruptive activity at Pu'u 'O'o and the collapse of the Pu'u 'O'o crater floor. This is chronicled on these two HVO Web pages: http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/archive/2007_06_19.html; http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/archive/2007_06_26.html. The quiet did not last long though, and lava began to erupt on the floor of the Pu'u 'O'o crater by July 2 (http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/archive/2007_07_23.html) from an eastern and a western vent on the crater floor. The crater floor was quickly buried and the crater began to refill with lava. Several time during the early part of the refilling process, lava from the western vent stopped erupting, partly drained back into the vent, then quickly re-emerged as the vent resumed its eruption. This video shows one of these drainback events followed by a smaller secondary drainback during the night of July 5-6, 2007. This camera was later lost when the crater floor and a portion of the crater rim collapsed following the July 21, 2007 fissure eruption (http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/pressreleases/pr07_21_07.html; http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/archive/2007_09_08.html).

The images that comprise this video were acquired by a time-lapse camera positioned on the northwestern rim of the Pu'u 'O'o crater about 185 meters (600 feet) from the erupting vent. The image acquisition rate was 1 frame per minute, and the resulting video is played at 15 frames per second.