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Stalled lava flows near Pāhoa and activity upslope of Cemetery Road/AP‘A‘ā Street
Active breakouts from tube system near Pu‘u Kahauale‘a approximately 1.8 km (1.1 mi) downslope of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō. Photo is looking uprift, or toward the southwest. Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō is on the skyline in the middle of the photo.
A geologist takes a sample of molten lava and quenches it in a bucket of cold water to "freeze" the crystalline structure. Lava samples are collected once a week to track the chemistry of the erupted lava over time.
Geologists survey the cross-sectional area of the lava tube using Very Low Frequency (VLF) measurements.
View looking downhill toward the stalled tip of the flow and Pāhoa Village Road. The transfer station is visible in the left of photo with stalled lava just within the boundary. No active lava breakouts were observed in this lowest part of the flow and below the crack system.
Burning vegetation at breakouts along margins of flow about mid-way down the flow field above the crack system. Photo is looking upslope toward Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō.
Thermal images from Friday (November 14) to Monday (November 17) show the decline in activity levels around the flow front over the weekend. While sluggish breakouts were observed near the cemetery in Pāhoa over the weekend, these breakouts are now inactive. Furthermore, today there were no significant surface breakouts in the area immediately upslope of AP‘A‘ā St./Cemetery Rd. Only one tiny hotspot was visible in this area, about 1 km (0.6 miles) upslope of Cemetery Rd., which might be a single small breakout. Although activity has stalled in this portion of the June 27th lava flow, the other photos from today (see above) indicate that new breakouts are present farther upslope on the flow field.
A comparison of a normal photograph with a thermal image of the new breakout near Pu‘u Kahauale‘a. The breakout consists of two separate lobes, with the longer, and more active, one traveling northeast along the base of the 2007 perched lava channel.
In addition to the large breakout near Kahauale‘a shown above, there was a series of smaller breakouts that appeared over the past day just upslope of the ground crack system, and about 8 km (5 miles) downslope of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō.
A comparison of a photograph and a thermal image of an HVO geologist sampling lava from the leading tip of the new breakout that originated near Kahauale‘a. The recently active, but cooling portions of the flow (red and purple areas in upper left portion of image) have average surface temperatures around 300 C (572 F). The actively flowing area in the center of the photograph that the geologist is sampling from (yellow and white colors) has surface temperatures between 600 and 970 C (1100-1800 F). The lava hidden beneath the crust remains well insulated, and previous studies have shown the lava has temperatures around 1140 C (roughly 2000 F).
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