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Photo and Video Chronology - Kīlauea - December 1, 2014

December 1, 2014

New lobe of June 27th lava flow advances downslope from ground crack area

 

The breakouts that began about two weeks ago near the area of ground cracks continued to advance downslope over the past week, creating a new lobe on the June 27th lava flow. This lobe is a short distance west of the earlier portion of the June 27th flow that reached Pāhoa. The new lobe advanced about 2.8 km (1.7 miles) over the past week, which is equivalent to about 400 meters per day (0.25 miles per day). A narrow lava channel was active this morning at the leading tip of the new lobe. The leading tip of this active lobe was 4.6 km (2.9 miles) upslope from the intersection of Highway 130 and Pāhoa Village Road (the intersection by Pahoa Marketplace).
A closer look at the narrow lava channel near the leading tip of the active lobe. The channel consists of both open sections as well as sections that are crusted over.

 

A small breakout was also active on the upslope portion of the June 27th lava flow. The pāhoehoe lava was flowing over an ‘A‘ā flow from late 2007.
A comparison of a normal photograph with a thermal image of the leading tip of activity on the June 27th lava flow. The white box shows the rough extent of the thermal image. The thermal image shows the narrow lava channel near the leading tip of the new lobe.
A comparison of a normal photograph with a thermal image of the narrow channel at the leading tip of the new lobe on the June 27th lava flow. The normal photograph is partially obscured by smoke from vegetation burning, but the thermal image can "see" through the smoke to show the nature of the channel in detail. Some sections of the channel are completely covered by crust (forming a lava tube), while other sections were open with a smoothly flowing surface.

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