Volcano Watch

In 2003, almost two-thirds of the Kahuku Ranch in south Hawai‘i Island was purchased by the Nature Conservancy and Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park...

Hawai‘i is the quintessential "hotspot." The geologic definition of a "hotspot" is that region of the Earth beneath an area that has experienced high...

Humans seem to have a limited ability to remember disasters. Some researchers who study disaster preparedness and risk mitigation speculate that...

Seventy-six years ago—on October 8, 1934—a 33-day-long eruption in Halema‘uma‘u Crater came to an end. This eruption began after almost three years of...

"Volcano Watch is a weekly article and activity update written by scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory." These...

For the last several years, scientists at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) have made use of a satellite-monitoring method called InSAR, which...

Disaster movie fans may remember the 2000 film "The Perfect Storm," in which economic hardship drives a fishing boat to risk a late-season expedition...

How long is the warning between the first rumblings of a volcano and its eruption? This haunting question was raised anew with the eruption of the...

There's a new volcanology book available from a Hawai‘i-based volcanologist, the first in almost 40 years.

Like other volcano observatories, HVO devotes most of its resources to volcano monitoring, using time-tested methods that have been found to deliver...

Anyone looking at a map of the Pacific cannot help but be astounded by the feat of the first Polynesian navigators to these isolated islands of Hawai...

It may surprise some readers that the Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō eruption, now halfway through its 28th year of almost continuous activity, is not the longest-running...

Last week, Ken Honma bid farewell to friends and colleagues at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) as he retired from a U.S. Geological Survey...

Most readers will see the headline and think it refers to events in Kalapana this past week. The title is actually from a back page story in the...

The bits of dust kicked up by last Sunday's magnitude-3.6 earthquake south of O‘ahu have settled.

Like the delicate interplay between the Spanish and Dutch soccer players in the final game of the World Cup, competing forces shape our island...

If you have visited the HVO Web site recently, you may have noticed that the Halema‘uma‘u Overlook Webcam has shown exceptional views of the lava pond...

Shortly before midnight on July 5, 1975, a hiker sleeping in Pu‘u‘Ula‘ula (Red Hill) Cabin on the northeast flank of Mauna Loa awoke and saw a faint...

On the Island of Hawai‘i, the only time people think of volcanoes and asphalt together is when an active lava flow crosses the road (cue "Why did the...

Thanks to relatively recent advances in technology, many portable digital devices now have accelerometers embedded in them.