Images

New fissures opened up on Hawaii’s Big Island in early May 2018, spouting lava that destroyed homes in the Leilani Estates neighborhood.

With each large earthquake, ground shaking causes additional collapse within the Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō crater, sending a plume of reddish-brown ash skyward. The size and vigor of a plume depends on the size of the earthquake and subsequent collapse. This roiling ash plume followed the magnitude-6.9 earthquake on May 4.

With each large earthquake, ground shaking causes additional collapse within the Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō crater, sending a plume of reddish-brown ash skyward. The size and vigor of a plume depends on the size of the earthquake and subsequent collapse. This roiling ash plume followed the magnitude-6.9 earthquake on May 4.

An intrusion of magma into Kīlauea Volcano's lower East Rift Zone resulted in an eruption in Leilani Estates in the lower Puna District on the Island of Hawai‘i. The first four fissures to erupt in the subdivision are shown here on May 4, emitting copious amounts of hazardous sulfur dioxide gas.

This map shows the locations, mapped by USGS-HVO scientists, of eruptive fissures in the order that they occurred in the Leilani Estates Subdivision as of 10:00 a.m. HST today (May 5).

This map shows the locations of eruptive fissures in the order that they occurred in the Leilani Estates Subdivision as of 10:00 a.m. HST today (May 5). The blue lines are paths of steepest descent that identify likely paths of a lava flow, if and when lava moves downhill from an erupting vent.

The start of fissure 3 during Kīlauea's lower East Rift Zone eruption. Lava erupting to the surface cut across Kaupili Street around 7:00 a.m. on May 4, 2018.

Kīlauea's summit eruption within Halema‘uma‘u did not initially respond to the volcano's East Rift Zone activity (collapse of the Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō crater floor and magmatic intrusion into the rift zone) on April 30. But on May 2, the lava lake level began to drop in concert with summit deflation, suggesting that magma was moving from the summit into the East Rift Zone.

This map shows the locations, mapped by USGS-HVO scientists, of the three eruptive fissures in the order that they occurred in the Leilani Estates Subdivision as of 8:00 a.m. HST today (May 4). The fissures are jetting copious amounts of sulfur dioxide gas, which should be avoided.

When Kīlauea Volcano's lower East Rift Zone first erupted on May 3, 2018, lava temperatures were about 2000 degrees Fahrenheit. As the eruption progressed, with fresher magma feeding the fissures, the erupted lava became progressively hotter, resulting in more fluid and far-reaching lava flows (May 21 shown here).

Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō on May 3, 2018, as viewed from the helicopter overflight. The crater floor is collapsed, and a thin plume escapes from the gaping crater. The west flank cracked on April 30th around 2:30 pm HST, and minor amounts of lava oozed out of the crack (line of steaming features) just before the plumbing system catastrophically failed.

Over 500 earthquakes were located by the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) between noon Friday and noon Saturday, May 4-5, 2018. A magnitude-6.9 earthquake at 12:32 p.m. HST on Friday was preceded by two foreshocks with magnitudes of 5.4 and 4.4 at 11:32 a.m.

As of this afternoon (May 1), the eruption at the summit of Kīlauea has apparently not been affected by the collapse of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō or intrusion of magma along the volcano's Lower East Rift Zone.

Just before 10:00 a.m. today (Monday, April 30), a break in the weather allowed HVO's webcam to capture this image of the lava lake within Halema‘uma‘u at the summit of Kīlauea. Following multiple overflows of the lava lake last week, the lake level dropped over the weekend in concert with the switch to summit deflation.

Night view of Kīlauea Volcano’s summit lava lake from April 24, 2018, while lava from the lake overflow was spreading westward (to the right in the picture) from the Overlook Vent. USGS photo from the Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park Jaggar Overlook

Night view of Kīlauea Volcano's summit lava lake from April 24, 2018, while lava from the lake overflow was spreading westward (to the right in the picture) from the Overlook Vent. USGS photo from the Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park Jaggar Overlook by M. Patrick.

Vigorous overflows from Kīlauea's summit lava lake covered a large portion of the floor of Halema‘uma‘u this morning. In this video, the view starts from the north and heads south, showing the north and east sides of Halema‘uma‘u crater.

Aerial view of the Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō crater (approximately 220 m or 720 ft wide) from April 23, 2018, following weeks of steady inflation and uplift of crater floor. View is to the southeast with lava flows of the Episode 61g flow field in the distance behind Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō .

Beginning around midnight on Saturday, April 21, Kīlauea Volcano's summit lava lake rose high enough that lava briefly spilled onto the floor of Halema‘uma‘u. Since then, additional overflows occurred in four pulses on April 22-23. The largest one occurred during the fourth pulse, which started at 6:30 a.m.

Overflows from the perched lava pond within west pit, a small crater adjacent to the main Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō crater on Kīlauea Volcano's East Rift Zone, continue to build up the levees around the pond. The rising level of the perched lava pond during the past month is a sign of the increasing pressure within the magma system beneath Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō.

Over the past month, HVO monitoring instruments have recorded a sharp inflationary trend at Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō (see https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/volcanoes/kilauea/monitoring_deformation.html, scroll to bottom of page).