#U S Geological Survey

Hawai’i airports brace for an influx of interisland passengers traveling to Hilo for the 63rd annual Merrie Monarch Festival, ongoing until April 11.

A fountaining eruption at Kīlauea’s caldera is projected between April 6 to April 14, potentially impacting residents and visitors with ash and tephra.

Ongoing swarms of earthquakes and persistent volcanic tremors indicate active magmatic movement, fueling anticipation about Kīlauea’s next eruption.

While the mid-20th century episodic eruption and current ongoing eruption within the summit caldera of Kīlauea volcano on the Big Island share similarities, there also are several differences.

Scientists at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, in collaboration with the US Geological Survey, have installed a new livestream monitoring camera at Kīlauea on the Big Island.

The V3cam on the south rim of Kīlauea was buried under 50 feet of tephra, abruptly ending its livestream.

The 1975 Kalapana earthquake has ultimately changed the understanding of Kīlauea’s south flank, and the hazards associated with its movement.

The largest Hawaiʻi earthquake of the 20th century and so far in the 21st century happened 50 years ago this month; shaking as well as ground subsidence and a local tsunami contributed to a catastrophic sequence of events Nov. 29, 1975.

Recently spotted cracks in the delta demonstrate the instability of solid lava along the coastal edge; the new cracks are alarming and have led people to wonder what they mean.

A team led by US Geological Survey geophysicist and oceanographer Ashton Flinders with Hawaiian Volcano Observatory discovered the underwater landslide that spans more than 10 miles across and could have played a role in the 1957 tsunami that struck Hawaiʻi and elsewhere in the Pacific region.

There seems to be enough evidence of some sort of collapse happening, which remains the only such event in the volcano’s documented history, simultaneously with a dramatic eruption that caused Hawai’i’s largest ever recorded earthquake, a magnitude-7.9 temblor that resulted in a tsunami and landslide in Ka’u that killed more than 100 people and lava flows that inundated 9 square miles.

By measuring the density of carbon dioxide trapped in bubbles formed in crystals as magma is under pressure underground, scientists can determine the depth at which the gas became trapped, and hence the depth of magma storage before eruption.

Several past eruptions were characterized by similar lava fountaining episodes, including at the start of the Puʻuʻōʻō eruption in 1983, the start of the Maunaulu eruption in 1969 and the 1959 Kīlauea Iki eruption.

While old-fashioned eyes and a notebook are used when field teams are near a volcano, modern volcano observatories also use rapidly collected data and computers to support monitoring. Hawaiian Volcano Observatory computers are ‘trained’ to look for activity and send alerts when a volcano is changing or becoming active.

While there were several summit eruptions at Kīlauea during the decade, including one that lasted more than 8 months, eruptions along the East Rift Zone — mainly in the upper and middle portions — were much more frequent.

Most of HVO’s field sites are more than one hour from definitive medical care, so staff take Wilderness First Aid training which prepares them for a variety of injuries and illnesses.

A series of earthquake swarms began suddenly at Kīlauea’s summit on October 4, 2023, and have continued periodically throughout the month.

The Great Hawaiʻi ShakeOut is an annual event for kamaʻāina and visitors alike to practice and prepare for when a large damaging earthquake hits the Hawaiian Islands.

The U. S. Geological Survey is looking into what next for Kīlauea.

The limited collapse of the inner part of Kīlauea Volcano’s caldera this summer fell well short of the larger summit-wide collapses that occurred in the past.