Images

HVO technician inspects power/communication station at Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō on on April 16, 2020. USGS photos by F. Younger.

View of the recently cleared Boiling Pots on the Wailuku River in Hilo. The pots, each about 15 m (50 ft) in diameter, are eroded into a 10,000 year old Mauna Loa lava flow. When the water is low, the river does not flow over some of the pot rims but it continues to flow through them.

HVO staff work together while maintaining social distancing as they install different parts of the new Mauna Loa summit MultiGAS station on April 27. In the left side of the image, an HVO field engineer connects solar panels to the batteries that will power the MultiGAS station.

On April 27, HVO field engineers and a gas geochemist conducted fieldwork to increase HVO's volcano-monitoring capabilities. Staff installed a MultiGAS station to collect volcanic gas data from within Moku‘āweoweo, Mauna Loa's summit caldera. The work was carried out with permission of Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park.

Geologic Map of the Southern Flank of Mauna Loa Volcano, Island of Hawai‘i

The relationship between Δ30 and N2/3He ratios in hydrothermal gases from Iceland and Yellowstone. Δ30 and N2/3He ratios are shown for samples collected from gases in Iceland (yellow circles) and Yellowstone (red circles). The Yellowstone mantle-endmember is arguably indistinguishable in terms of N2/3He from the convecting upper mantle (grey diamonds).

Measuring tilt in Timberline parking lot in early April 1980 during lightly falling snow. USGS photo by Don Swanson.

Clear weather allowed HVO geologists to make observations and take measurements of the water pond at Kīlauea's summit. No major changes were observed, and the water level continues to slowly rise. Note the former HVO observation tower can be seen above the geologist's helmet. 

This compilation shows the appearance of the water pond at Kīlauea's summit over the past two weeks. Day to day changes in the color of the pond are common, with portions of the pond shifting from a green hue to brown. A sharp color boundary has been common for several months in the same general area of the pond.

Members of the Clear Lake Volcanic Field research team

Example 2-hours of seismic data from station near Mauna Kea on April 14, 2020. The large spikes are earthquakes under Mauna Kea repeating every ~11 minutes. Bottom waveform zooms in on 15 seconds of an individual event.

This section of brown Icelandic soil (top) contains 800 years of ash deposits erupted from five different volcanoes. The black layers, 5-10 cm (2-4 in) thick, are from Katla Volcano. A white arrow points to a closeup of the 1755 Katla ash deposit (lower left).

Scanning electron microprobe images show the complexity of tiny Icelandic ash grains (150 micron, or 0.006 inch). Image (a) shows a dense and blocky grain, and (b) shows a foamy grain.

Clear weather allowed another water pond measurement to be made this morning. Results show continued slow rise of the water level. No major changes were observed. Note the former HVO observation tower can be seen above the geologist's helmet.

Day to day changes in the color of the water pond are common. This morning the pond had a browner hue compared to the previous observation on April 1, when the pond color was slightly more greenish yellow (see photo below).

Physical map of the western USA showing locations of strong earthquakes in March 2020 and Basin and Range extensional province. The Basin and Range stretches from the Sierra Nevada in the west to the Wasatch and Teton mountains in the east, and from central Idaho and southwest Montana in the north to Mexico in the south.

During the 1926 Mauna Loa eruption, an ‘a‘ā flow about 457 m (1500 ft) wide and 9 m (30 ft) high headed straight for the village of Ho‘ōpūloa on April 18, as shown here. By the next day, the lava flow had destroyed a dozen houses, a church, and the wharf, and had nearly obliterated the bay. Photo by Army Air Corps, 11th Photo Section.

The water pond from the webcam site. This view provides a better view of the greenish zone in the west end of the pond (bottom right of photo).

A closeup of the northern shoreline shows how opaque the water is against the rocks. USGS photo by M. Patrick.

Aerial view of a bomb detonating on Mauna Loa near the source of the 1935 Humu‘ula lava flow on the morning of December 27, 1935. This was one of 20 demolition bombs dropped on the lava flow that morning by the Army Bombing Squadron from Luke Field, O‘ahu.

A U.S. Army Air Corps biplane is prepared for a mission to drop bombs on a lava flow advancing toward Hilo during the Mauna Loa 1935 eruption.