New USGS Professional Paper Chapter — Patterns of Bubble Bursting and Weak Explosive Activity in an Active Lava Lake—Halema‘uma‘u, Kīlauea, 2015
By Hawaiian Volcano Observatory
February 18, 2021
A new chapter of USGS Professional Paper 1867, "The 2008–2018 Summit Lava Lake at Kīlauea Volcano, Hawai‘i" was recently published online. The 2008–2018 lava lake at the summit of Kīlauea marked the longest sustained period of lava lake activity at the summit in decades and provided a new opportunity for observing and understanding lava lake behavior.
The chapter "Patterns of Bubble Bursting and Weak Explosive Activity in an Active Lava Lake—Halema‘uma‘u, Kīlauea, 2015" discusses the opportunity to study lava lake outgassing and the link to associated eruptive activity. Videography was used to investigate the rise and bursting of bubbles through the free surface of the lake in 2015, focusing on low-energy explosive activity (spattering).