Images

A new vent opened on the northeast flank of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō during the first week of December. This is the incandescent, fuming trio of holes just below and to the left of center in the accompanying image.

This is a view of the new vent from the ground, showing the thin roof that caps the brightly incandescent cavity below. Views from the air show the cavity to be much larger than the current opening, probably extending at least as far as the sulfur staining in the foreground and back under the mound to the right.

A bubbling lava surface could be seen about 5 m (16 ft) below the opening of the new vent when viewed from the air. The size of the opening will likely grow with time, as the narrow septa between the individual holes collapse.

Lava, like this typical pāhoehoe flow on Nov. 12, 2015, continues to breakout northeast of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō (in background) on Kīlauea Volcano. Current activity is within about 6 km (4 mi) of the vent and poses no immediate threat to Puna communities.

During a kona wind, fume from Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō (foreground) and Halema‘uma‘u Crater (background), both on Kīlauea, blows northward, with towering Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea on the horizon. USGS photo.

The cover of USGS Professional Paper 1806, one of three recent books on Hawaiian volcanism. USGS photo.

This small-scale map shows Kīlauea's active East Rift Zone lava flow in relation to the eastern part of the Island of Hawai‘i. The area of the flow on November 12 is shown in pink, while widening and advancement of the flow as mapped on December 3 is shown in red. The yellow lines show the active lava tube system.

This map shows recent changes to Kīlauea's active East Rift Zone lava flow field. The area of the flow on November 12 is shown in pink, while widening and advancement of the flow as mapped on December 3 is shown in red. Changes shown at near the east edge of the map extent reflect updated ground mapping, not new flows.

Scattered breakouts persist northeast of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō, and the farthest reach of active breakouts today was 5.9 km (3.7 miles) from the vent on Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō. A minor change on the flow field occurred last week, with a breakout from the tube on November 25 that created a small flow that remains active today.

A closer look at the breakout point where lava emerged from the tube on November 25. A few skylights provide views of the lava in the new lava tube that formed over the past week on this flow.

A very close view of the active pāhoehoe toes on the margin of the November 25 breakout. A fresh lava sample was collected from this spot with a rock hammer today. Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō is in the distance.

All that remains of Pu‘u Kahauale‘a can be seen in this photograph, with only the peaks of the formerly prominent forested cinder cone visible. This cone has been buried by lava from the June 27th flow over the past year. In the upper left a small hornito can be seen.

A fascinating cross section of a hornito was revealed recently, when a partial collapse provided a window into a portion of an abandoned lava tube. The void space behind the geologist was filled with lava at some point, with lava and gas forced through the narrow crack in the center of the photograph.

A few small vents are active in the southern portion of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō crater. These erupted a small flow onto the crater floor recently.

This satellite image was captured on Monday, November 30, by the Advanced Land Imager instrument onboard NASA's Earth Observing 1 satellite. The image is provided courtesy of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Although this is a false-color image, the color map has been chosen to mimic what the human eye would expect to see.

Mount Fuji, or Fuji-san as the Japanese address the mountain, is 3,776 m (12,389 ft) tall and towers above the surrounding communities. USGS photo.

Scanning Electron Microscope image of resuspended volcanic ash from the 1912 Novarupta-Katmai deposits in the Katmai region, picked up during high winds on November 1, 2015 and carried to Larsen Bay on Kodiak Island, AK. Sample collected by Sherry Harmes of Larsen Bay.

A young ‘ōhi‘a tree with its red lehua blossoms grows near a steam vent on the solidified crust of the 1959 Kīlauea Iki lava lake in Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park. ‘Ōhi‘a trees thrive on volcanic landscapes ranging from sea level to 2440 m (8,000 ft) elevation and are among the first plants to grow on new lava flows.

This map shows recent changes to Kīlauea's active East Rift Zone lava flow field. The area of the flow on October 23 is shown in pink, while widening and advancement of the flow as mapped on November 12 is shown in red. Not all changes at the northern edge of the flow in the forest were mapped due to poor weather and visibility.

This small-scale map shows Kīlauea's active East Rift Zone lava flow in relation to the eastern part of the Island of Hawai‘i. The area of the flow on October 23 is shown in pink, while widening and advancement of the flow as mapped on November 12 is shown in red. The yellow lines show the active lava tube system.

Breakouts remain active northeast of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō. Though heavy rains prevented a detailed survey today, there was little change in activity observed on today's overflight. As with previous weeks, most breakouts are active within the existing boundaries of the June 27th lava flow, with no major expansion of the flow margins.