Matthew Patrick, Ph.D.

The 2008–2018 lava lake at the summit of Kīlauea marked the longest sustained period of lava lake activity at the summit in decades and provided a new opportunity for observing and understanding lava lake behavior. The individual chapters of this Professional Paper volume cover the basic chronology of the eruption, rich historical background, observations and measurements of lake...

The 2018 eruption of Kīlauea Volcano marked the end of the first sustained period of volcanic activity at Halemaʻumaʻu Crater in 94 years. The views of the lava lake (informally named “Overlook,” nestled within Halemaʻumaʻu) lasted for a decade and seemed timeless. But as we were recently reminded, the summit of Kīlauea is part of a dynamic system that has provided countless new views to...

The first eruption at Kīlauea’s summit in 25 years began on March 19, 2008, and persisted for 10 years. The onset of the eruption marked the first explosive activity at the summit since 1924, forming the new “Overlook crater” (as the 2008 summit eruption crater has been informally named) within the existing crater of Halemaʻumaʻu. The first year consisted of sporadic lava activity deep...

In the summer of 2018, Kīlauea Volcano underwent one of its most significant eruptions in the past few hundred years. The volcano’s summit and East Rift Zone magma system partially drained, resulting in a series of occasionally explosive partial caldera collapses, and widespread lava flows in the lower East Rift Zone. The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) operates a robust permanent...

Most basaltic explosive eruptions intensify abruptly, allowing little time to document processes at the start of eruption. One opportunity came with the initiation of activity from fissure 8 (F8) during the 2018 eruption on the lower East Rift Zone of Kīlauea, Hawaii. F8 erupted in four episodes. We recorded 28 min of high‐definition video during a 51‐min period, capturing the onset of...

The 2018 summit and flank eruption of Kīlauea Volcano was one of the largest volcanic events in Hawaiʻi in 200 years. Data suggest that a backup in the magma plumbing system at the long-lived Puʻu ʻŌʻō eruption site caused widespread pressurization in the volcano, driving magma into the lower flank. The eruption evolved, and its impact expanded, as a sequence of cascading events...

Kīlauea Volcano, on the Island of Hawaiʻi, has had a prominent role in the science of volcanology, and a long history of generating new insights into how volcanoes operate (Tilling et al. 2014; Garcia 2015). Native Hawaiians shared ideas on the behavior of the volcano with early Western visitors to Kīlauea, addressing the basic geometry of magma supply and transport (Ellis 1825; Bishop...

Lava flows present a recurring threat to communities on active volcanoes, and volumetric eruption rate is one of the primary factors controlling flow behavior and hazard. The timescales and driving forces of eruption rate variability, however, remain poorly understood. In 2018, a highly destructive eruption occurred on the lower flank of Kīlauea Volcano, Hawaiʻi, where the primary vent...

Caldera-forming eruptions are among Earths most hazardous natural phenomena, yet the architecture of subcaldera magma reservoirs and the conditions that trigger collapse are poorly understood. Observations from the formation of a 0.8cubic kilometer basaltic caldera at Klauea Volcano in 2018 included the draining of an active lava lake, which provided a window into pressure decrease in...

We present the evolution over 3 months of a 2016–2017 pāhoehoe flow at Kīlauea as it changed from a narrow sheet flow into a compound lava field fed by a stable system of tubes. The portion of the flow located on Kīlauea's coastal plain was characterized using helicopter‐based visible and thermal structure‐from‐motion photogrammetry to construct a series of georeferenced digital surface...

Active lava lakes represent a variety of open-vent volcanism in which a sizeable body of lava accumulates at the top of the magma column, constrained by the vent and/or crater geometry. The longevity of lava lakes reflects a balancing of cooling and outgassing occurring at the surface by input of hot and gas-rich magma from below. Due to their longevity and relative accessibility, lava...

In 2014–2015, a slow-moving pāhoehoe lava flow from the remote Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō vent on Kīlauea Volcano advanced 20 km into populated areas of the Puna District on the Island of Hawai‘i. The staff of the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) mobilized their resources to closely monitor the flow and provide up-to-date information to the Hawai‘i County Civil Defense...