Bubble Bursts at East Lae'apuki Ocean Entry (May 29, 2006)

The interaction of sea water and lava creates a volatile situation. When this happens inside the confined space of a lava tube, or a narrow, water-filled crack, the results can be impressive. In this video, which was made from time-lapse images cropped to focus on the activity, bursting lava bubbles put on quite a show for several hours. Some of the larger bubble bursts are estimated to have reached in excess of 20 meters (65 ft) in height. The bubble bursts occurred about 350 meters (1,150 feet) away from the camera. At that distance, a person would be smaller than the numbers in the date-time watermark.

Bubble bursts and other types of explosive activity at ocean entries are described in detail on this HVO webpage (http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/hazards/oceanentry/deltaexplosions/).

The images that comprise this video were acquired by a time-lapse camera positioned on the edge of the older sea-cliff at the northeastern end of the East Lae'apuki delta. The image acquisition rate was 1 frame per minute, and the resulting video is played at 10 frames per second.