Images

The floor of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō crater continues its slow rise as lava pours out of a new vent at the base of the east wall. The height of the floor has risen 20 m (66 ft) over the past two weeks.

A low-angle view of the perched lava lake shows how it is elevated above the floor of the crater, like an above-ground swimming pool. The levee around the stands some 8-10 m (26-33 ft) above the surrounding crater floor. Also visible as the bottom of the photo is a new vent which began erupting around midnight last night on the western edge of the crater floor.

View looking up Mauna Loa's spectacular Southwest Rift Zone. Pu‘u o Keokeo fills the lower half of the photo. The black lava beyond is mostly from 1916 and 1926. The summit of Mauna Loa is in the background.

Sulfur, not snow, paints the ground white in the Sulfur Cone area on Mauna Loa's upper Southwest Rift Zone. The summit of Mauna Loa is over the slope of the mountain out of sight to the left in the background.

Shield-volcano Mauna Kea viewed from the northern slope of Mauna Loa (cinder cones in the foreground) shows off its broad shield shape. The bumps on its profile are large cinder cones.

The high point of Mauna Loa, in the background at an elevation of about 13,679 ft, is actually just the highest point along the rim of the steep cliffs that surround Mauna Loa's summit caldera, Moku‘āweoweo, Dark-colored lava flows of recent vintage (1984) cover the floor of Moku‘āweoweo. View is looking southwest.

This edge of the cliff above Moku‘āweoweo, at an elevation of 13,661 feet, is only a few feet lower than Mauna Loa's high point (out of sight to the left). The cliff here is about 600 feet high. Mauna Kea, in the background to the right rises to an elevation of 13,796 feet, barely 100 feet higher the summit of Mauna Loa.

This view of Mauna Loa's 1940 vent cone, looking to the southwest, shows a fissure that bisected it during the 1984 eruption (crack on the right side of the cone). Pāhoehoe flows and spatter erupted from the 1984 fissure blanket the caldera floor northwest of the cone (foreground).

This aerial view of Mauna Loa's summit shows the cinder-cone and lava flows that were erupted in 1949. The crack extending down the left side of the cone is the northeast-southwest trending 1984 fissure that bisected the southwest flank of the cone during the initial phase of the eruption. Light-brown tephra erupted from the 1949 cone thins to the west.

USGS employees deploys a water conductivity/temperature/depth probe (AquaTroll) for a temporary study along the Madison River, Yellowstone.

A close-up of the swiftly moving lava stream, plunging into the lava lake.

A complex configuration has been in place deep within the vent cavity in Halema`uma`u crater. Lava upwells in the west portion of the vent floor (upper left of photograph), feeding the small, crusted, circular lava lake.

The western Kamoamoa fountain-fed lava flows advanced over 1997 lavas (dark flow in foreground) with 1965 and 1968 lavas buried by Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō cinder to the far left. Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō is in the distant background.

Looking northwest at the lava pond on the floor of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō crater. At the time of the photograph, the level of the lava pond was about 3 m (10 ft) below the floor of the crater.

An hour later, the lava had risen high enough to spill over the pond walls and expand across the crater floor.

After an intrusion on March 5, Pu‘u‘ō‘ō crater floor subsided for several hours. Hot incandescent crater walls were exposed as the floor dropped a total of 113 m (371 ft). Frequent rockfalls into the crater triggered red ash plumes. USGS photo taken by T. Orr on March 5, 2011, at 4:32 p.m.

In this close-up view of the lava lake in Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō, lava upwells at the west edge of the lake (bottom center of the photo) and flows toward the east (top of photo) where the mostly degassed lava sinks back down, presumably circulating back into the vent.

Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō continues to host a small lava lake at the bottom of the crater. Minor spattering and overturning of the lake surface was observed by field crews today.

This thermal image was taken from the south rim of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō crater, showing the lava lake within the crater. Hotter surfaces, such as the narrow zones between crustal plates, are shown by yellow and white colors. Cooler surfaces, such as the cooled lava around the lake, are shown by blue and black colors.

A small lava lake, confined by slightly elevated levees, is active at the bottom of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō crater. The lake is roughly the same size as a football field.

Lava reappeared in Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō crater on Saturday morning (March 26), covering the floor of the crater with a small lava lake.