Video: Kilauea Eruption’s Spectacular Return
After giving the world a lovely early midwinter gift with the first eruption of Mauna Loa in 38 years, Madam Pele took the holidays off. Kilauea’s summit eruption paused on December 9th, possibly due to the relief of stress as its neighbor’s reservoir emptied.* Mauna Loa’s display ended on the 13th, and both volcanoes slumbered peacefully through the new year.
Pele returned to Kilauea with a spectacular lava show on January 5th. And I’ve got the videos all nicely arranged for you.
We knew something might be up when a small swarm of earthquakes began late in the evening on January 2nd and continued into the morning of the 3rd, including a substantial M4.0 just north of the summit at 3:31 a.m. HST. The summit was continuing a long-term inflationary trend. Magma was obviously refilling the chamber. But the lava lake remained completely crusted, with only a tiny glow from within a hornito resolutely lighting the night.
On the early morning of the 5th, increased seismicity and ground deformation left no doubt magma was on the move just beneath the surface, and the USGS raised the alert level to Orange. But as late as 3:20 p.m. HST, volcanologists still couldn’t say if it would erupt, although the signals were intensifying by 3 p.m.
I had a feeling, so I took a screenshot from the KWcam at 4:20 p.m. HST. I’ve added an arrow showing a particular spot that would soon be of interest.
KWcam image from just 14 minutes before the summit eruption resumed. The purple arrow points toward the soon-to-be vent. Credit: USGS & Dana Hunter
At 4:34 p.m., a vent opened and the webcams recorded an incredible show.
Holy heckles, what a fountain! I’ve never been more grateful to not be standing on a crater floor.
Let’s talk about what’s going on in those videos.
The B1cam (my favorite) shows steam emerging from the incipient vent to the east of the island, then a sudden, powerful burst of lava as the vent opens. Ash and steam rise behind the fountain, and an orange wave splashes across the crater floor. Oh, and that hornito in the foreground? Say your goodbyes, because it won’t survive the night.
Meanwhile, KWcam looks east, so it doesn’t have the sun in its eye. You can clearly see the initial jet of steam and the brilliant orange lava fountain. And how about that sudden flood of vivid orange molten rock flooding away from the vent? This video isn’t speeded up. Basalt can really sprint when it’s hot, fresh, and voluminous. And this, kids, is why we don’t play around in the craters of active volcanoes, even relatively benign ones like Kilauea.
For an even more dramatic illustration of this fact, we turn now to the second KWcam video. Fifteen minutes into the eruption, the fountain leaps to a height of 50 meters (164 feet). A tsunami of orange-hot basalt crashes across the crater floor at astonishing speed. And we are once again reminded that geology is beautiful and marvelous and sometimes wildly freaking dangerous.
Pele put on one heck of a show into the night. The dramatic fountaining subsided, but multiple dome fountains merrily bubbled away within the rejuvenated lava lake. The largest fountain, which persists today, maintained a respectable 10 meters (32 feet) of height, and sometimes surged to 30 meters (98 feet). By 7:30 p.m., nearly the entire crater floor was buried in 10 meters of fresh lava.
The Moon presides over the eruption at 6:38 p.m. HST. Credit: USGS
The eruption has settled happily into a new lava lake, newly rejuvenated the 2021-22 lake, and provided much satisfying dome fountain action in the USGS live feed. There’s no sign of another pause so far. Meanwhile, Mauna Loa sleeps.
It’s a wonderful start to the year.
* The two shields don’t share shallow magma chambers, but they’re such close neighbors that changes in stress in one volcano – such as emptying a swollen reservoir – can potentially affect the activity of the other. Kilauea’s 2021-22 summit eruption was such a low volume that even a slight reduction of pressure from its big sibling could have shut it down. Or it may have been a total coinkydink. The science is still out on that.
References:
December 13th USGS Volcanoes Facebook post
Activity Notice January 5th 3:20 p.m. HST
Activity Notice January 5th 4:35 p.m. HST
KWcam at Kīlauea’s summit captures eruption within Halemaʻumaʻu crater
KWcam at Kīlauea’s summit captures lava fountain within Halemaʻumaʻu crater
January 5th USGS Volcanoes Facebook post
Activity Notice January 5th 8:09 p.m. HST
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