Images

This Quicktime video shows lava sample collection from the perspective of an HVO geologist.

This wide view shows the lava lake active within the Overlook crater, which is set within the larger Halema‘uma‘u Crater. There have been no major changes in the lake in recent weeks. This morning the lava lake was roughly 60 meters (200 feet) below the rim of the Overlook crater.

Replica of a 19th century soda bottle that was sealed with a blue marble (visible in lower crimp of the bottle). Bottles like this played a part in creating the bottled soda analogy of how and why volcanoes erupt. The Halema‘uma‘u Overlook gas plume is visible in the background. USGS photo.

This panorama is from the north rim of Mauna Loa's summit caldera, Moku‘āweoweo, and shows the thermal camera watching for changes on the caldera floor.

An HVO geologist performs a routine check of the thermal camera and webcam at the summit of Mauna Loa.

USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory scientists are closely monitoring recent signs of unrest on Mauna Loa, the largest active volcano on Earth. In this 1985 aerial photo, Mauna Loa looms above Kīlauea Volcano's summit caldera (left center) and nearly obscures Hualālai in the far distance (upper right). USGS photo.

TOP: Mauna Loa weekly earthquake rates between 2010 and September 17, 2015. Blue bars indicate the number of earthquakes that were located by the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory seismic network. Earthquakes of all magnitudes are plotted. Subtle increases in earthquake rates started in mid-2013, while more obvious changes in rates started in 2014.

After 25 years of slumber, Mauna Loa woke with a spectacular, but short-lived, eruption that began just before midnight on July 5. Lava fountains soon erupted from fissures extending across the length of Moku‘āweoweo, Mauna Loa's summit caldera, and into the upper ends of the volcano's northeast and southwest rift zones.

On June 1, 1950, a 2.4-km (1.5 mi) long fissure erupted high on Mauna Loa's Southwest Rift Zone at 9:04 p.m. Minutes later, the roar of lava fountains could be heard up to 24 km (15 mi) away.

The four-tiered USGS Volcanic Activity Alert-Notification System uses Volcano Alert Level terms and Aviation Color Codes to inform people about a volcano's status and potential volcanic ash hazards. For more information about this system, please see http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2006/3139/.

This map overlays a georeferenced thermal image mosaic onto a map of the flow field to show the distribution of active and recently active breakouts. The thermal images were collected during a helicopter overflight of the flow field on September 11. The June 27th flow is outlined in green to highlight the current flow margin.

This small-scale map shows Kīlauea's active East Rift Zone lava flow in relation to the eastern part of the Island of Hawai‘i. The area of the flow on August 26 is shown in pink, while widening and advancement of the flow as of September 11 is shown in red. The yellow lines show the active lava tube system.

Photo of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō west of the crater, looking north-northwest. The west edge of the crater is to the right. The western pit, with the lava pond, is just above and left of center. Notice the vaguely arcuate line of fume that wraps from the south edge of the crater, around the western pit, and back to the northwest edge of the crater in the background.

View of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō crater, looking northwest. The floor of the crater was paved in late August by lava that erupted from a vent at the northeast edge of the crater, which is the heavily fuming area to the right.

There has been no significant change on the flow field northeast of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō, and some of the active flows continue to creep into the forest along the north edge of the flow field, as seen here, looking roughly northwest. Activity has been remarkably stable and consistent, with no overall advancement of the flows, for the last several weeks.

George Kojima, circa 1959, analyzing volcanic gases using the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory's state-of-the-art (at the time) mass spectrometer. USGS photo.

USGS\AVO seismologist works to replace an old seismometer at seismic station LSSA on Little Sitkin Volcano in the western Aleutian Arc.

AVO seismologists work to repair a seismic station on Little Sitkin Volcano in the western Aleutians Islands.

This satellite image was captured on Wednesday, September 2, 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.

A large breakout from the lava tube on the north side of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō yesterday (August 27) formed a large channelized flow, but it did not last long. The activity died in the evening, the same day, and traveled only about 500 m (about 550 yards).

As magma rises toward Earth's surface, gases dissolved in the molten rock bubble out and escape through surface vents called fumaroles. HVO established sensors atop Mauna Loa in late 2005 to continuously monitor the concentration of carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide gases and fumarole temperature within Moku‘āweoweo, the summit caldera.