Images

Spattering is common in Kīlauea Volcano's summit lava lake, and consists of many large bursting gas bubbles. The fluid nature of the lake can be seen when lava hits the wall and flows downward like syrup. The thin, flexible nature of the crust is also shown here, as the bursting gas bubbles rip and fold the thin skin on the lake.

This perched lava channel, which was as much as 150 feet (45 meters) above the ground, carried lava downslope from the Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō Fissure D vent during episode 58 of Kīlauea Volcano's ongoing East Rift Zone eruption. The channel was the main path for lava between July and November 2007. Episode 58 continued until early March 2011.

A beautiful sunset over Mauna Loa (in distance at left) provided a backdrop to the lava lake within Halema‘uma‘u. HVO and Jaggar Museum are on the horizon near the center of the panorama.

Kīlauea Volcano's Kamokuna ocean entry photographed on May 23, 2017 (left) and July 13, 2017 (right) show how lava flowing from the tube has both widened and thickened the delta. Near the sea cliff, the delta appears to have doubled in thickness over the past seven weeks, creating a distinctly sloped surface from the base of the cliff to the sea.

Campaign GPS antenna on Kīlauea's south flank at Pu‘ukapukapu inside Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park during the 2019 Kīlauea GPS campaign. View is to the southwest along the Kīlauea Volcano coastline. 

On March 6, 2011, USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory scientists were stationed along Kīlauea Volcano's East Rift Zone to monitor the progression of erupting fissures that had opened west of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō the day before. Lava spewing from this fissure (background) reached heights up to 30 m (100 ft) and produced a massive lava flow, visible behind the HVO scientist.

This spectacular lava fountain, erupting from Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō on June 30, 1984, lasted just over 7 hours and reached a height of 318 m (1043 ft). It was one of 44 high lava fountains erupted during the first 3.5 years of Kīlauea Volcano's ongoing East Rift Zone eruption, which began in January 1983.

On the evening of June 30, 2008, littoral explosions at Kīlauea Volcano's Waikupanaha ocean entry created a fireworks-like display as incandescent fragments of lava flew through the air. When molten lava entered the sea, the water flashed to steam, triggering explosions that hurled spatter and other lava fragments up to heights of 50 m (164 ft).

This video clip shows Kīlauea Volcano's Kamokuna ocean entry, with the steam plume rising from the front of the lava delta. Recent flows have covered the surface of the delta with fresh lava.

USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory broadband-seismic stations located at the summit of Kīlauea have been significantly upgraded over the past three years. During the upgrades, HVO field engineers (inset) complete the wiring connections of the solar power and telemetry systems at each site, which are about 10 m (33 ft) from the seismometer.

Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) images of Kīlauea (left) and Mauna Loa (right) spanning the past several years. Concentric patterns of colored fringes indicate magma accumulation centered near the summit calderas of both volcanoes.

View looking northeast at Kīlauea's summit lava lake.

USGS scientists hiked to the summit of Mauna Loa, where they checked on HVO's monitoring instruments and realigned an antenna that allows webcam images of the volcano's summit caldera (shown in this panoramic image) to be posted on the HVO website.

Early this morning the lava lake level was measured at 12.5 m (41 ft) below the vent rim, the highest level the lake reached this month. But, at around 8:30 a.m., summit inflation switched to deflation and the lava lake level began to drop.

Lava flowing from Kīlauea again

Kīlauea flows are large

This 3D model of the lava lake at Kīlauea's summit was constructed from a series of thermal images acquired during an overflight on Thursday, March 16. For scale, the lava lake is about 250 meters (820 ft) across. The lake is within the Overlook crater, which is within Halema‘uma‘u Crater.

Sunset view of the Kīlauea summit lava lake showing an active area of spattering at the right margin. Jagged openings between cooler crustal plates reveal molten lava. HVO is faintly visible on the Kīlauea Caldera rim at upper left. USGS photo February 13, 2017.

The surface breakout that started on February 10 remains active on the coastal plain just east of the main episode 61g lava flow field. The flow front, pictured here, advanced to about 300 m (0.2 miles) from the emergency access road in Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park, but appeared to be stalled this afternoon.

A Valentine's Day 2017 view of Kīlauea Volcano's summit lava lake, here the surface of the lake is about 21 m (69 ft) below the vent rim. The lake diameter is about 255 m or 840 ft. Careful tracking of the amount of ash emitted by lake processes suggest an important new insight into the supply of magma to Kīlauea's summit. USGS Photo.

A U.S. Geological Survey scientist used a custom-built, high-speed camera to remotely measure the temperature of spattering lava on the surface of Kīlauea Volcano's summit lava lake (background). This particular experiment, conducted from the Jaggar Museum overlook in Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park on December 10, 2016, was part of a NASA-funded research project.