Images

The lava delta at Kīlauea Volcano's Kamokuna ocean entry continues to grow. On May 23, activity was concentrated near the southeastern tip of the delta, creating a thick steam plume that afforded only occasional glimpses of lava entering the ocean. Small littoral bursts were common as molten lava interacted with the cool seawater.

USGS staff are preparing to deploy the Edgetech 512i sub-bottom profiling system from the stern of a research vessel.  The sub-bottom profiling system was used to map the geologic structure and sediments beneath the seafloor.

Image of the chirp 512i sub-bottom profiling system towed behind a research vessel during a seafloor mapping research effort. USGS staff, Alex Nichols, is in the foreground of the image.

A comparison of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory homepage in 1998 (left), the year the website was originally launched, and in 2017 (right), following an extensive makeover to create a website that is more interactive, mobile-friendly, and easier to maintain.

Still-image from video camera atop the Dream Inn looks eastward over Main Beach and boardwalk in Santa Cruz, CA.

Frame from video of Cowells Beach in Santa Cruz, California, showing “pixel instruments” measured continuously during the video and used to estimate different coastal processes. The blue dots represent an array of pixels used by a computer program called cBathy to estimate seafloor depths (bathymetry).

USGS ocean engineer Gerry Hatcher (left) and USGS postdoctoral oceanographer Shawn Harrison make adjustments to a computer controlling two video cameras on the roof of the Dream Inn, a 10-story hotel overlooking Monterey Bay in Santa Cruz, California. One camera looks eastward over Santa Cruz Main Beach and boardwalk, and the other southward over Cowells Beach.

Aerial view of the May 18, 1980, eruption of Mount St. Helens as seen from the southwest. Columns of ash and volcanic gas reached heights of more than 24 km (80,000 ft) during the eruption.

USGS geologist Don Swanson (in red) and his colleague, Jim Moore, view a car filled with ash deposits from the May 18, 1980, eruption of Mount St. Helens. Additional photos of the 1980 eruption of Mount St.

The lava delta at Kīlauea Volcano's Kamokuna ocean entry is quickly rebuilding after the collapse on May 3, when much of the previous delta collapsed into the sea. A robust steam plume obscured the seaward section of the delta today (May 7).

A telephoto lens provided a close-up view of the seaward edge of the Kamokuna lava delta, where multiple, small streams of lava were entering the ocean today. Fragments of hot lava can be seen floating in the water.

USGS scientists hiked to the summit of Mauna Loa, where they checked on HVO's monitoring instruments and realigned an antenna that allows webcam images of the volcano's summit caldera (shown in this panoramic image) to be posted on the HVO website.

Time-averaged image, or “timex,” created by averaging the intensity of light recorded at each spot, or “pixel,” during a 10-minute video taken at Santa Cruz, California, on May 6, 2017. Blurred white zones show where waves are breaking. Line between wet and dry sand shows the maximum height on the beach reached by the waves (“runup”).

“Variance” image produced from video shot at Cowells Beach in Santa Cruz, California, on May 6, 2017. The more the light intensity changes at a given spot, or “pixel,” during the video, the brighter the value assigned to that pixel. Motion tends to produce changes in light intensity. Note bright areas along and beyond the shore where waves were breaking.

This small-scale map shows Kīlauea's active East Rift Zone lava flow field in relation to the southeastern part of the Island of Hawai‘i. The area of the active flow field as of April 10 is shown in pink, while widening and advancement of the active flow as of May 3 is shown in red. Older Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō lava flows (1983-2016) are shown in gray.

This map shows recent changes to Kīlauea's East Rift Zone lava flow field. The area of the active flow field as of April 10 is shown in pink, while widening and advancement of the active flow as of May 3 is shown in red. Older Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō lava flows (1983-2016) are shown in gray. The yellow line is the trace of the active lava tube (dashed where uncertain).

On May 3, Kīlauea Volcano's Kamokuna lava delta, which had been growing since late March, collapsed. An HVO time-lapse camera captured the sequence of events in five-minute intervals. This image shows the lava delta at 7:50 a.m. HST, a couple of hours before the collapse.

Within five minutes, between 9:55 and 10:00 a.m. HST, nearly the entire delta disappeared, collapsing into the sea. The collapsed area cut back toward the sea cliff, past the largest crack on the delta. In this image, captured at 10:05 a.m., the seawater is brown and turbulent.

This morning (May 4), the Kamokuna ocean entry was obscured by a thick steam plume at the base of the cliff. Sparse littoral bursts, occasionally visible through the plume, were the source of the floating, steaming lava fragments that can be seen in the ocean near the entry.

Hawaiian Volcano Observatory volunteer Marcy Frenz feeds a seismogram from the May 1982 Kīlauea south caldera earthquake flurry into a large-format document scanner. Preserving stacks of paper earthquake records as digital image files is an ongoing project at HVO. USGS photo by S. Tsang.

Between 9:35 and 9:40 a.m., a large steam plume appeared in the middle of Kamokuna lava delta in the area of large cracks noted in our April 27 image (see below). Weak fountaining or spattering likely occurred initially, because new tephra is visible in the steaming area, but that activity ended by 9:40 a.m.