Images

A crowd of visitors from the steamships Haleakalā and Matsonia view the eruption plume from the front of the Volcano House hotel. They were subsequently warned by Ruy H. Finch, acting director of HVO, that it was unwise to remain there.

Prior to the eruption of 1924, this area was swept clean and used as a landing field for airplanes. This view looking toward the north rim of Halemaumau shows the air field littered with ballistic blocks from explosions in the 1924 eruption.

This block was thrown out during an explosion at Halema‘uma‘u on May 18, 1924, while Acting HVO director Ruy Finch and others were nearby. The block landed about 600 meters (2000 feet) from today's rim of Halemaumau and created a large impact crater.

This was probably the strongest explosion of the eruption. Rocks and debris fell among spectators southeast of Halemaumau, causing one fatality. A torrential downpour and an electrical storm followed.

Acting HVO director Ruy Finch snapped this photograph of spectators running away as large blocks were tossed about 600 meters (2000 feet) onto an airplane landing field. Lorrin A.

The series of explosive eruptions in May 1924 followed the withdrawal of lava from lava lake in Halema‘uma‘u Crater that began in February and the ensuing collapse of its crater floor in late April. Scientists infer that the lava had drained to a depth below the water table at the summit, currently about 500 m (1,640 ft) below the floor of the caldera.

Boles poses on the grounds of the Volcano House hotel with the Halemaumau eruption plume in the background. He fell cutting his hands and a knee while fleeing an explosion the day before. After his close call the superintendent barred all public access within two miles of Halemaumau.

Eight persons, including newspaper and movie men observing the scene at Halema‘uma‘u, were caught in a rain of hot rocks from this explosion. The rocks emitted hissing sounds as hot gas, mainly steam, escaped from them. Park superintendent Thomas Boles was knocked down twice by this bombardment.

On May 11, Ruy Finch and W.O. Clark visited Halemaumau and found a rock fragment weighing about 180 kg (400 pounds) that had been thrown 60 meters (200 feet) from the rim of the crater.

Later scientists at the Observatory listed May 10 as the first day of the eruptive series. Between this date and May 27, they carefully recorded all explosions, ballistic falls, electric storms, and muddy rains as well as earthquakes felt and recorded on seismographs.

After the severe earthquake swarm in lower Puna subsided, seismic tremor became more pronounced at the summit of Kīlauea Volcano. The floor of the crater of Halemaumau continued to collapse.

Scientists looking into the bright glow of Mauna Loa's 1942 eruptive vent. Eruption occurred during WWII and was not publicized to prevent Japanese war planes from navigating to the island at night.

On April 22, an observer at the Kapoho railroad quarry counted 238 felt earthquakes over a period of four hours. By Sunday, April 27, things had calmed considerably at Kapoho, although a dozen shocks were felt during the day and half a dozen more overnight.

These tracks were damaged by the vertical drop along the zone of cracks and faults that ran parallel to the east rift zone of Kīlauea Volcano. Witnesses reported that where the railroad entered the valley, the ties and rails were swinging like a suspension bridge for a distance of about 61 meters (200 feet).

By April 22, 1924, the incessant earthquakes caused many people to leave the district. When Hilo Tribune Herald reporter Jazz Belknap reached the Kapoho train station, he found a great crowd waiting for the autos that were hauling passengers out of the district.

Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes in Katmai National Park, circa 1922. Windy Creek is in the foreground. Following the June 6, 1912 eruption of Novarupta-Katmai, thousands of fumaroles filled the valley for many years. Buried snow fields, glacial streams, and precipitation were converted to steam by the heat trapped in the pyroclastic flow.

Lassen Peak photographed from the Devastated Area about 4 hours before the explosive eruption of May 22, 1915.

Lassen Peak photographed from the Devastated Area prior to the 1914-1915 eruption that changed the landscape.

1906 earthquake damage to home on Howard and 17th Streets in San Francisco. Liquefaction, the phenomenon of saturated soils losing their stiffness and strength during shaking, caused structures to tilt and collapse.

One of the most well-known photographs by George R. Lawrence, taken May 28, 1906, about 6 weeks after the Great San Francisco earthquake which occurred on April 18. The 160-degree panorama was taken from a camera suspended from a kite 2,000 feet in the air. The view looks up Market Street with the waterfront and Union Ferry Building in the foreground.

Slope map of Mauna Loa, including lava flows erupted since 1823 (gray), showing the approximate number of hours or days it took for a flow to advance from the vent location to the ocean or maximum reach of a flow. One flow that moved down the steep slopes on west flank of Mauna Loa reached the ocean in as little as 3 hours after the vent started erupting in 1950.