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Volcano Watch: Kilauea activity update for April 23, 2015


Time-lapse thermal image movie of Halemaumau Overlook Vent. April 16-23, 2015. Images courtesy of USGS/HVO


Time-lapse movie of Halemaumau Overlook Vent. April 16-23, 2015. Images courtesy of USGS/HVO


Time-lapse movie of Halemaumau Crater looking Southwest. April 16-23, 2015. Images courtesy of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

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

KÄ«lauea Volcano’s East Rift Zone lava flow continues to feed widespread breakouts northeast of PuÊ»u ʻŌʻō. The front of the breakout farthest downslope was 8 km (5 mi) from PuÊ»u ʻŌʻō on Thursday, April 23.

KÄ«lauea’s summit began to inflate on Tuesday, April 21, and was still inflating as of Thursday. The lava level in the summit lava lake rose in concert, and was 21 m (70 ft) below the rim of the Overlook crater at midday on Thursday, April 23. This is the highest level reached by the lava lake since the summit eruption started in 2008. Seismicity also increased at the summit and along the upper East Rift Zone.

Three earthquakes were reported felt in Hawaii this past week. On Sunday, April 19, 2015, at 7:47 a.m., HST, a magnitude-2.3 earthquake occurred 12.3 km (7.6 mi) southwest Laupāhoehoe, Hawai‘i, at a depth of 16.8 km (10.5 mi). On Monday, April 20, at 9:18 p.m., HST, a magnitude-3.2 earthquake occurred 11.1 km (6.9 mi) NE of Ke‘anae, Maui, at a depth of 14.9 km (9.2 mi). On Tuesday, April 21, at 11:02 p.m., HST, a magnitude-2.4 earthquake occurred 8.0 km (5.0 mi) E of Waiki‘i, Hawai‘i, at a depth of 25.3 km (15.7 mi).

Visit the HVO website (http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov) for past Volcano Watch articles, KÄ«lauea daily eruption updates and other volcano status reports, current volcano photos, recent earthquakes, and more; call (808) 967-8862 for a KÄ«lauea summary update; email questions to askHVO@usgs.gov


Time-lapse movie from images gathered from a temporary thermal camera looking into Pu’u ‘O’o Crater. The temperature scale is in degrees Celsius up to a maximum of 500 Celsius (932 Fahrenheit) for this camera model, and scales based on the maximum and minimum temperatures within the frame. Thick fume, image pixel size and other factors often result in image temperatures being lower than actual surface temperatures. April 23, 2015. Images courtesy of USGS/HVO

This satellite image was captured on Monday, April 20, 2015 by the Landsat 8 satellite. Although this is a false-color image, the color map has been chosen to mimic what the human eye would expect to see. Bright red pixels depict areas of very high temperatures and show active lava. White areas are clouds.  The lava flow field is partly obscured by clouds, but the image shows much of the activity on the June 27th flow. There have been three areas of breakouts active on the June 27th flow recently. The breakout on the north flank of Puʻu ʻŌʻō is obscured by clouds, but the breakout north of Kahaualeʻa is visible through patchy clouds in this image. This breakout has been active recently at the forest boundary, triggering small brush fires. The farthest breakout is about 6 km (4 miles) northeast of Puʻu ʻŌʻō, and consists of scattered activity at the forest boundary.

This satellite image was captured on Monday, April 20, 2015 by the Landsat 8 satellite. Although this is a false-color image, the color map has been chosen to mimic what the human eye would expect to see. Bright red pixels depict areas of very high temperatures and show active lava. White areas are clouds.
The lava flow field is partly obscured by clouds, but the image shows much of the activity on the June 27th flow. There have been three areas of breakouts active on the June 27th flow recently. The breakout on the north flank of Puʻu ʻŌʻō is obscured by clouds, but the breakout north of Kahaualeʻa is visible through patchy clouds in this image. This breakout has been active recently at the forest boundary, triggering small brush fires. The farthest breakout is about 6 km (4 miles) northeast of Puʻu ʻŌʻō, and consists of scattered activity at the forest boundary.

This map shows recent changes to Kīlauea’s active East Rift Zone lava flow field. The area of the flow on April 9 is shown in pink, while widening and advancement of the flow as of April 23 is shown in red. Puʻu ʻŌʻō lava flows erupted prior to June 27, 2014, are shown in gray.

This map shows recent changes to Kīlauea’s active East Rift Zone lava flow field. The area of the flow on April 9 is shown in pink, while widening and advancement of the flow as of April 23 is shown in red. Puʻu ʻŌʻō lava flows erupted prior to June 27, 2014, are shown in gray.


Video courtesy of Tropical Visions Video with air transportation by Paradise Helicopters.

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