Images

Looking northwest at the lava pond on the floor of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō crater. At the time of the photograph, the level of the lava pond was about 3 m (10 ft) below the floor of the crater.

An hour later, the lava had risen high enough to spill over the pond walls and expand across the crater floor.

After an intrusion on March 5, Pu‘u‘ō‘ō crater floor subsided for several hours. Hot incandescent crater walls were exposed as the floor dropped a total of 113 m (371 ft). Frequent rockfalls into the crater triggered red ash plumes. USGS photo taken by T. Orr on March 5, 2011, at 4:32 p.m.

Lava reappeared in Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō crater on Saturday morning (March 26), covering the floor of the crater with a small lava lake.

Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō continues to host a small lava lake at the bottom of the crater. Minor spattering and overturning of the lake surface was observed by field crews today.

A small lava lake, confined by slightly elevated levees, is active at the bottom of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō crater. The lake is roughly the same size as a football field.

In this close-up view of the lava lake in Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō, lava upwells at the west edge of the lake (bottom center of the photo) and flows toward the east (top of photo) where the mostly degassed lava sinks back down, presumably circulating back into the vent.

This thermal image was taken from the south rim of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō crater, showing the lava lake within the crater. Hotter surfaces, such as the narrow zones between crustal plates, are shown by yellow and white colors. Cooler surfaces, such as the cooled lava around the lake, are shown by blue and black colors.

Wes Thelen began his new job as HVO's Seismic Network Manager amidst a flurry of volcanic and seismic activity during Kīlauea Volcano's recent Kamoamoa fissure eruption, shown here on March 9, 2011.

Sunset Crater, a basaltic cinder cone in the San Francisco Volcanic Field, Arizona, erupted in 1085 A.D.

HVO staff and volunteers map run-up elevations and inundation distances of tsunami waves that reached the shores around Hawai‘i Island following the magnitude-9.0 earthquake in Japan.

An early morning view of the fountaining we encountered at the western fissure on Sunday, March 6, at 7:20 a.m. Particles were thrown up to 15 m (50 ft) high at this point and the intensity and height increased over the next two hours.

By early this morning, the front of the ‘A‘ā flow fed from the western vent had intercepted the edge of the Mother's Day flow, which was emplaced in 2002-2004. The flow advanced about 2.9 km (1.8 miles) in 30 hours.

The front of the advancing ‘A‘ā flow is about 4 m (13 ft) thick.

Lava fountains from the northeastern vent of the Kamoamoa eruption. Though it is an impressive sight, the Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō cone in the background, and several hundred meters higher, puts the current activity into perspective.

View looking down onto the northeastern vent.

Lava, erupting from the southwestern vent of the Kamoamoa eruption, fountains above the surrounding forest.

Overview of the Kamoamoa eruption looking south. The northeastern vent is to the left, and the southwestern vent is to the upper right. A river of lava, erupting from the southwestern vent, can be seen advancing toward the southeast through forest within Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park.

A piece of spatter ejected on March 7, 2011. Handheld GPS for scale

Views into the Halema‘uma‘u vent have been largely obscured by fume over the past several days, and the only consistent views have been with a thermal camera, which can "see" through the fume. This thermal image was taken at a nearly vertical angle from a helicopter, in order to see the bottom of the extremely deep and narrow vent cavity.

With lava retreating deeper into the Halema‘uma‘u vent cavity over the past two days, the cavity walls have experienced more frequent collapses. At 2:23pm today, a collapse from the upper portion of the vent cavity produced a robust brown plume, but did not eject any large particles.