Images

The front half of the lava delta is shown, with an open lava stream left of center. In the upper left is a circular rubble feature, called a shatter ring, which formed between Aug 15 and Sept 19, and is the source of many of the lava flows on the left (west) side of the image.

Top: Map view of well recorded historical seismicity at Mount Rainier since 2007 (gray circles) with seismicity since September 11 plotted as filled red circles. Location of seismic stations indicated by arrows. Bottom: Cross-sectional view looking north shows earthquake depths. Black outline is a west-east elevation profile of Mount Rainier.

This video shows the Kamokuna lava delta growing and sinking over a 1 month time span between 15 August 2017 and 19 September 2017. Made from one image every other day. The video is looped 10 times, with the loop number in the upper left corner.

A shatter ring forms and grows on the Kamokuna lava delta. This video shows repeated uplift and subsidence of the delta surface by the lava supply under the surface. This process creates a large round rubble pile, called a shatter ring.

There were nice views of the 61g lava delta today (September 19) from the public viewing area. Many streams of lava were entering the ocean on the eastern side of the delta creating a robust plume. Over the past week, there have been repeated breakouts near the center of the delta, increasing its size.

A telephoto of a stream of lava pouring from the delta to the beach below. As the cold sea water hits the hot lava, explosive interactions break apart the rock to form the sandy beach seen at the deltas base.

Aerial view of Mauna Loa erupting on the morning of March 25, 1984, the first day of the volcano's most recent eruption. The lava flow was advancing southeast, toward Kīlauea, from fissure vents at an elevation of about 11,200 feet on Mauna Loa's Northeast Rift Zone. Moku‘āweoweo, Mauna Loa's summit caldera, is visible at top left.

A USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory geologist monitored the advance of an ‘A‘ā lava flow on April 6 during the 1984 Mauna Loa eruption. This flow was about 4 m (13 ft) high and advancing at a rate of 50 m (55 yards) per hour. Lava reached within 6 km (4 mi) of Hilo city limits before the 22-day-long eruption ended on April 15.

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 panorama, taken from the eastern rim of Halema‘uma‘u, shows the lava lake within the Overlook crater. The lake surface this morning was about 40 meters (130 ft) below the floor of Halema‘uma‘u. Mauna Loa spans much of the skyline near the center of the image; HVO and Jaggar Museum can be seen on the distant caldera rim (right side of image).

Wispy fumes provided a clear view of the western wall of the Overlook crater this morning. Just above the lake surface (bottom of photo), a "bathtub ring" extends up the wall several meters, marking a recent high stand of the lake. Above that, a thick span of red, white and yellow rock is exposed in the crater wall.

On September 8, at 6:06 p.m. HST, much of the large ledge that had built up on the south side of the summit vent within Halema‘uma‘u collapsed. The top two images, captured by HVO's K2 and HT web cameras, show the summit vent before the collapse. A yellow arrow points to the ledge, which was formed by layers of lava stacking up during repeated high lake levels.

HVO K2cam image at the time of the 6:06 p.m. collapse on Sept. 8. Interestingly, this collapse did not generate a large explosion—only a small, brownish plume was observed during and immediately after the rocky ledge fell into the lava lake.

A USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory webcam captured this image of spattering on Kīlauea Volcano's summit lava lake on September 6, 2017. In concert with summit inflation, the lake level had risen to 16.5 m (54 ft) below the vent rim, bringing it into view from the Jaggar Museum Overlook in Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park.

USGS campus in Menlo Park, California - office location of the California Volcano Observatory

Lava continues to enter the ocean at the Kamokuna ocean entry with many small lava streams near the front of the delta. On August 19, there was a breakout approximately 120 m (394 ft) away from the edge of the sea cliff that lasted for approximately 9.5 hours.

Today, two recent breakouts (lighter in color) were visible on the steeper portion of the pali. The western breakout (left of the kipuka) started on August 27 from the 61g tube, and has started to advance onto the coastal plain. To the east (right) of the kipuka is a smaller surface flow that is a part of the larger June 26 breakout.

Telephoto view of some of the pāhoehoe lava channels from the surface activity of the June 26 breakout.

This map shows recent changes to Kīlauea's East Rift Zone lava flow field. The area of the active flow field as of August 9 is shown in pink, while widening and advancement of the active flow as of September 1 is shown in red. Older Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō lava flows (1983-2016) are shown in gray. The yellow line is the trace of the active lava tube.

This map is similar to the map above but shows a thermal map over the Episode 61g lava flow. Cooler colors (blue and green) show cooled, inactive portions of the flow surface. Hot colors (red and orange) show areas of active surface breakouts.

The east side of Mount Rainier, as viewed from Panhandle Gap.