Volcano Watch

A common sight this time of year, particularly in Puna and the National Park, is a bright yellow tripod topped with a white disk. Usually seen...

Few landscape changes are as extreme as that between the windward and leeward sides of Kīlauea's caldera. Simply drive from the Visitor Center in...

The hot-spot theory is the well-known modern explanation for the origin of the Hawaiian island chain. In it, the Pacific plate drifts northwestward...

Kīlauea wasn't always like it is today. Two hundred thousand years and the change from a seamount to an island can do a lot to a volcano. The trick is...

HVO scientists have developed techniques to study conditions in the interior of active lava tubes and flows by making measurements on and above their...

The last couple of weeks have been exciting ones to be studying active volcanism in Hawai'i. To start with, after several months of fairly constant...

The basic strategy in monitoring a volcano has not changed much since 1912 when Thomas A. Jaggar founded HVO. He recognized the importance of...

On the night of June 1, 1950, after many residents of Ho`okena-mauka village in South Kona had already gone to bed, Mauna Loa began to erupt. Soon the...

A pair of devastating eruptions in the Caribbean 99 years ago this week shook the world and, as fate would have it, led indirectly to the founding of...

In last week's article we mentioned that April is tsunami awareness month in Hawai`i and earthquakeawareness month in California.

Early Monday morning, residents of the northern half of the island were awakened by a magnitude-3.9 earthquake. This was a gentle reminder that we...

Here's a riddle for you—which large land holder on the Big Island condemns property at will, holds liens on large parts of the island, and doesn't pay...

Late on March 30, a visiting geology student from Oregon fell about 12 m (40 feet) into a crack in the ground between Crater Rim Drive and the rim of...

Nearly on the other side of the planet, the Big Island has a sister, older by at least a couple of million years: Reunion Island, built in the same...

The summits of volcanoes are part of an ever-changing landscape. The summit of Mauna Loa has undergone considerable change in the short period since...

The U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory currently operates a network of 65 seismic stations. Signals from each station, including...

Haleakalā Crater is a large erosional valley at the summit of Haleakalā volcano, East Maui. It formed after the rimrock lava flows were erupted around...

March 5 is the 36th anniversary of one of Kīlauea's most important eruptions—the 1965 eruption that formed Makaopuhi lava lake. It was the fifth of...

Several scientists from the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and the University of HAW‘A‘āII attended the Cities on Volcanoes II conference held in...

Whenever a large, destructive earthquake occurs anywhere in the world, such as those in Sumatera and El Salvador on January 13, there is an agency...