HVO: Kīlauea volcano erupted briefly on Sunday night in the middle East Rift Zone

Kīlauea volcano erupted briefly on Sunday night, Sept. 15, 2024, on the middle East Rift Zone in Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park, according to a new update issued at 11:33 a.m. by the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. The Volcano Alert Level for ground-based hazards remains at WATCH and the Aviation Color Code remains at ORANGE at this time. Rates of seismicity and ground deformation beneath the summit, lower East Rift Zone, and Southwest Rift Zone remain low. Current activity is restricted to Kīlaueaʻs upper-to-middle East Rift Zone. 

The brief eruption occurred just west of Nāpau Crater on the middle East Rift Zone. “This eruption, which is now over, likely occurred between approximately 9 and 10 p.m. HST on Sunday 15, 2024, in a remote and closed area of Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park. Chain of Craters Road, which is closed, is located downslope and downwind of the new fissures.  Continued degassing from the fissure system may pose a hazard to humans downwind of the eruption site.  The eruption does not currently pose an immediate threat to human life or infrastructure,” the HVO said in an activity notice update.

The HVO reports: The eruption took place near the National Park Nāpau campsite (east of Kānenuiohamo and Makaopuhi Crater and west of Nāpau Crater).  Small lava pads erupted from two fissure segments in a couple hundred meters (hundred yards).  The lava extended 50 or so meters (yards) from the fissure vents, with the uprift fissure segment being larger than the downrift fissure segment.  The eruption does not appear to have impacted Nāpau campground, but may have partly covered the pulu (Hawaiian tree fern) station nearby.  Vegetation in the eruption area was burned and sulfur dioxide continues to de-gas from the vents.  Residents of nearby subdivisions reported smelling volcanic gas and other smells related to this event during the evening of Sept. 15. 

Numerous eruptions took place in Kīlauea’s middle East Rift Zone during the 1960s–1970s, according to the HVO. Most of these eruptions occurred between Hiʻiaka crater and Puʻuʻōʻō and lasted from less than one day to about two weeks, although there were long-lived eruptions at Maunaulu (1969–1971 and 1972–1974) and Puʻuʻōʻō (1983–2018), scientists said. 

• A map of past eruptive activity in the upper-to-middle East Rift Zone of Kīlauea is available here: https://www.usgs.gov/maps/kilauea-middle-east-rift-zone-reference-map.  

Hazards also remain around Kīlauea caldera from Halemaʻumaʻu crater wall instability, ground cracking, and rockfalls that can be enhanced by earthquakes within the area closed to the public. The HVO says this underscores the extremely hazardous nature of the rim surrounding Halemaʻumaʻu crater, an area that has been closed to the public since early 2008.