Images

USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory scientists investigate a portion of the Great Crack in the Keaiwa flow field on Kīlauea Volcano's Southwest Rift Zone. USGS photo.

The lava pond in the western portion of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō crater remains active, and has enlarged since our last observation. The pond today was about 50 m (160 ft) in diameter, with spattering along the western margin.

An HVO geologist collects a fresh lava sample for chemical analysis. The lobe being sampled was typical of the many scattered pāhoehoe breakouts along the flow margin today.

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 on June 16 is shown in pink, while widening and advancement of the active flow field as mapped on June 23 is shown in red. The area covered by the inactive June 27th flow is shown in orange.

This satellite image was captured on June 21 by the Advanced Land Imager instrument onboard NASA's Earth Observing 1 satellite. The image is provided courtesy of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Although this is a false-color image, the color map has been chosen to mimic what the human eye would expect to see.

HVO geologists conduct a VLF (very low frequency) survey across the episode 61g lava tube to measure the depth and cross-sectional area of lava flowing within the tube.

This map shows recent changes to Kīlauea's active East Rift Zone lava flow field. The areas covered by the recent breakouts at Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō as of June 16 are shown in pink, while widening and advancement of the active flow as mapped on June 23 is shown in red. The area covered by the inactive June 27th flow is shown in orange.

The episode 61g flow from Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō continues advancing downslope. In this photo, the current flow is the lighter color area along the center of the image. The flow front has advanced about 770 m (0.5 miles) since the June 16 overflight, which equates to an advance rate of about 100 m per day (330 ft per day).

Incandescent vents are still open on the northeast flank of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō. From the ground, no views of the lava were possible because the area around the vent was too unstable and dangerous to approach.

An aerial view of the same vent shown at left provided a look of the lava stream within the deep cavity.

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 on June 10 is shown in pink, while widening and advancement of the active flow field as mapped on June 16 is shown in red. The area covered by the inactive June 27th flow is shown in orange.

This map shows recent changes to Kīlauea's active East Rift Zone lava flow field. The areas covered by the recent breakouts at Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō as of June 10 are shown in pink, while widening and advancement of the active flow as mapped on June 16 is shown in red. The inactive June 27th flow is shown in orange.

Though difficult to photograph, aerial views showed that this open vent was but a small window into a large, hot cavity beneath Puʻu ʻŌʻō's northeast flank in Hawaii Inside, streams of lava from an unseen source (or sources) closer to the crater rim (visible at lower right) were cascading toward the upper left into unknown depths.

The active surface flow from Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō is still advancing slowly downslope and was 4.4 km (2.7 miles) long when mapped today. Averaged over the past six days, the flow has been advancing at a rate of about 200 m (220 yards) per day.

Several vents have opened on Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō's northeast flank since last December. A spatter cone grew over one of the vents in mid-May and is visible at the center of the photo emitting bluish fume. In recent weeks, a vent opened upslope from (to the left of) the spatter cone, revealing bright incandescence.

This view is of the front of the active lava flow, looking upslope. Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō is partly obscured in the clouds at upper left. Most surface activity on the advancing flow is actually where the flow widens, upslope of the flow front.

Though difficult to photograph, aerial views showed that this open vent was but a small window into a large, hot cavity beneath Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō's northeast flank. Inside, streams of lava from an unseen source (or sources) closer to the crater rim (visible at lower right) were cascading toward the upper left into unknown depths.

The uppermost part of the nascent lava tube has several skylights, which reveal the lava stream within the flow, like capillaries beneath the skin. This is the uppermost skylight, just downstream from where the lava broke out from the east flank of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō on May 24.

The lava stream was flowing toward the photographer in this photo. Higher lava levels are preserved in the shelf-like protrusions on the darker orange wall to the left.

This map shows recent changes to Kīlauea's active East Rift Zone lava flow field. The area covered by the June 27th flow (now inactive) as of June 2 is shown in orange. The areas covered by the recent breakouts at Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō as of June 8 are shown in pink, while widening and advancement of the active flow as mapped on June 10 is shown in red.

A closer view of the flow front, with Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō in the background.