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Time-lapse movie of Halemaumau overlook vent

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Time-lapse thermal image movie of Halemaumau overlook vent

Lava flows have spilled from Puʻu ʻŌʻō crater over the past few weeks. One flow went out the southern end of the crater and traveled a short distance downslope to the southeast before stopping. The other flow, coming directly from the small lava lake on the northeast edge of the crater floor, went down the north flank of Puʻu ʻŌʻō and reached to the base of the cone. This flow is still active and its front has gone about 1.4 km (0.9 miles). Photo courtesy of USGS/HVO

(Activity updates are written by scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.)

The eastern rim of Puʻu ʻŌʻō is no longer visible, having been buried by flows mostly from the small lava lake on the northeast side of the crater floor. A mound of lava with a complex of spatter cones, visible in the background, now surrounds the lava lake, which is only visible from the air. Lava from the lava lake is feeding a small lava flow active at the northern base of the Puʻu ʻŌʻō cone. The box in the foreground houses the Puʻu ʻŌʻō Crater webcam shown on the HVO webpage. A time-lapse camera on a tripod is visible on the crater rim in the distance. Photo courtesy of USGS/HVO

A lava lake within the Halema`uma`u Overlook vent produced nighttime glow that was visible from the Jaggar Museum overlook and via HVO’s Webcam during the past week. The lake level fluctuated slightly in response to summit DI events but was generally 35 to 40 m (115 to 130 ft) below the floor of Halema`uma`u.

On Kilauea’s east rift zone, surface lava flows remain active several hundred meters (yards) out from the base of the pali, as well as near the coast. Weak ocean entries scattered along the sea cliff remain active on both sides of the Hawai`i Volcanoes National Park boundary. At Pu`u `O`o, lava erupting from a complex of spatter cones on the northeast side of the crater floor — the former site of a small lava lake — travels down the northeastern flank of the Pu`u `O`o cone via an incipient lava tube. This lava is feeding a slow-moving pahoehoe flow spreading at the northern base of the cone.

There was one felt earthquake in the past week on the Island of Hawai`i. A magnitude-3.2 earthquake occurred at 5:43 p.m., HST, on Saturday, January 26, 2013, and was located 13 km (8 mi) northwest of Mauna Kea summit at a depth of 21 km (13 mi).

Visit the HVO Web site (http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov) for Volcano Awareness Month details and Kilauea, Mauna Loa, and Hualalai activity updates, recent volcano photos, recent earthquakes, and more; call (808) 967-8862 for a Kilauea summary; email questions to askHVO@usgs.gov.

The lava flow fed the northeastern lava lake in Puʻu ʻŌʻō remains weakly active at the northern base of the Puʻu ʻŌʻō cone. The front of the flow is burning lichen on old ʻAʻā flows erupted from Puʻu ʻŌʻō during 1983–1986. The eastern edge of Puʻu ʻŌʻō is at the upper right side of the photo. Photo courtesy of USGS/HVO

The currently active Peace Day flow (episode 61) is shown as the two shades of red—light red is the extent of the flow from September 21, 2011, to January 4, 2013, and bright red marks the mapped flow expansion from January 4 to January 30. While there have been small changes near the coast, most of the change is related to lava flows that have spilled from the Puʻu ʻŌʻō crater over the past few weeks. Older lava flows are labeled with the years in which they were active. Episodes 1–48b (1983–1986) are shown in gray; episodes 48c–49 (1986–1992) are pale yellow; episodes 50–53 and 55 (1992–2007) are tan; episode 54 (1997) is yellow; episode 58 (2007–2011) is pale orange; the episode 59 Kamoamoa eruption (March 2011) is at left in light reddish orange; and the episode 60 Puʻu ʻŌʻō overflows and flank breakout (Mar–August 2011) are orange. The contour interval for topographic lines shown on Puʻu ʻŌʻō is 5 m.

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Time-lapse movie of the Peace Day Flow area

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Time-lapse movie of Pu‘u ‘O‘o Crater

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Time-lapse thermal image movie of Pu‘u ‘O‘o Crater