Images

This rapidly moving ‘A‘ā lava flow was one of several that advanced down the west flank of Mauna Loa during the volcano's 1950 eruption. The massive flow, tens of meters (yards) high, traveled from the Southwest Rift Zone vent to the ocean, a distance of about 18 km (11 mi), in around 18 hours.

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

View of Glacier Bay National Park from the air.

USGS research geologist Kate Scharer with her finger on the Fairweather Fault in southeast Alaska. The magnitude 7.8 Lituya Bay earthquake caused shaking that toppled trees along the fault, which left a break in the forest shown here.

Nearly 60 years after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake struck Lituya Bay, Alaska — leading to a tsunami that devastated the area — six U.S. Geological Survey geologists revisited the isolated region of Alaska, to pick up where their scientific predecessors left off.

Periodic calving of ice from the snout of South Crillon Glacier.

Trench site along the southern Fairweather Fault, in Glacier Bay National Park, Alaska. The alluvial fan at left consists of lake, stream channel and debris flow deposits impounded by the Fairweather Fault scarp, at right.

The field team included USGS geologists Rob Witter, Adrian Bender, Chris DuRoss, Peter Haeussler, Richard Lease and Kate Scharer

Fairweather fault lidar 

Screenshot of Total Water Level and Coastal Change Forecast Viewer on June 4, 2016, two days before Tropical Storm Colin was expected to hit Florida’s Gulf of Mexico coast.

This map shows recent changes to Kīlauea's active East Rift Zone lava flow field. The area covered by the June 27th flow as of June 2 is shown in orange. The areas covered by the new breakouts at Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō as of May 26 are shown in pink, while widening and advancement of the new breakouts as mapped on June 2 is shown in red.

The 1887 lava flow erupted from Mauna Loa's Southwest Rift Zone crossed the government road (about a 1,000 feet south of today's Highway 11), traveling 14 km (9 mi) in less than 9 hours. Photo by J.J. Williams, courtesy of National Park Service.

Video showing a small channelized flow, as well as the skylight described above, on the breakout on the east flank of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō.

View of breakout on northeast flank of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō. The light-colored flows in the foreground are active pāhoehoe flows. The view is to the southeast. Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō is at upper right.

View of recent breakout on east flank of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō. The flow has advanced about 1.3 km (0.8 miles), but activity today was focused in the middle part of the flow, closer to its vent. The view is to the west.

This photo, looking southwest, shows Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō in the background, with the northern breakout from May 24 extending to the right, with fume coming from a newly forming tube. The feature in the center foreground is a perched lava pond that formed in July 2014, but was refilled by new lava from the northern breakout in recent days.

Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō's current crater subsided by about 10 m (33 ft) in the days following the May 24 breakouts. This view, looking southeast, shows the crater as it was today. HVO webcams are perched on the edge of the Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō cone (an older crater rim) in the foreground.

Overnight on May 13-14, a new spatter cone, shown here, grew over a vent high on the northeast rim of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō. HVO scientists for scale.

A close-up view of the spatter cone.

The ground around the spatter cone was covered in small gobs of spatter and Pele's hair, as shown here.

This is another view of the breakout on the east flank of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō. It forms the lighter-colored surface in the lower left quadrant of the photo. Note the orange speck on the breakout - this is the skylight shown in the adjacent photos and the video below.