The Kilauea volcano in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park erupted again on Wednesday, January 15, marking the fourth episode of an eruption that began on December 23. Footage livestreamed by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) on Thursday shows lava fountains at the Halemaumau crater.
The USGS said the eruption has been restricted to the summit caldera, and that it “has been occurring within a closed area of Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park.” The eruption is visible from many public overlooks in the park. The lava is reportedly not posing a hazard to homes or infrastructure.
What began Wednesday morning as a “small sluggish lava flow,” increased into a fountain that appeared to be 200 feet (60 meters) high, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said. By the afternoon, visitors to the national park on the Big Island were able to see two fountains from an overlook.
The observatory said it was possible fountain heights would increase as more gas-rich lava erupted. “The park is already very busy with people eager to see the eruption and we expect visitation to increase as the news gets out again,” Jessica Ferracane, park spokesperson, said in an email.
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park encompasses the summits of two of the world’s most active volcanoes: Kilauea and Mauna Loa. For the past 200 years, Mauna Loa and Kilauea have tended to erupt on average every two or three years, placing them among the most frequently active volcanoes of the world.
A pattern of alternating dominant activity between Mauna Loa and Kilauea could imply that both volcanoes may alternately tap the same deep magma source. Whether this is so is a topic of scientific debate, because abundant chemical and physical evidence indicates that each volcano has its own shallow magma reservoir that operates independently of the other.
Recent eruptions of Kilauea seem to follow a pattern of happening around late December early January, sometime in June, and then again in September, as was the case in both 2023 and 2024.
—
Photo Credit: Alexander Demyanenko / Shutterstock.com