Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano has been oozing lava for more than three decades, but it seems to have been ramping up this year, erupting for the third time this year after nearly three months of quiet, with glowing lava flows bursting within one of its craters Sunday, according to the US Geological Survey.
The eruption started around 3:15 p.m. local time in Halemaʻumaʻu crater in Kilauea’s summit caldera at Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park, according to USGS. Kīlauea is the youngest and most active volcano on the island, with several summit eruptions since 2020. “The eruption was preceded by a period of strong seismicity and rapid uplift of the summit,” USGS said Sunday night.
Kilauea last erupted briefly in June, putting on a dazzling display with lava fountain bursts about 200 feet high. The eruption ended on June 19, according to USGS. Kilauea also erupted in January, after it stopped in December for the first time since September 2021, when there was an eruption in which lava was contained to Kilauea’s summit crater.
This very active volcano has been erupting more or less continuously since 1983, with pauses and some changes in behavior. Prior to 2018, it had been erupting in very sparsely populated areas; those areas were overrun by lava flows a long time ago. But in the Spring of that year, the eruptions shifted to the east, through what is known as the East Rift Zone, and moved closer to people.
The eruption in 2018 was one of the most destructive in recent Hawaii history, destroying hundreds of homes and forcing evacuations of surrounding neighborhoods. “Since that 2018 activity, Kilauea has experienced nearly constant change with distinct episodes of calm, unrest, eruptions, and everything in between,” USGS said.
According to Stanford University volcanologist Paul Segall, the Hawaiian volcanoes are examples of what experts call hotspot volcanoes, which are quite different from other types of volcanoes like Mount St. Helens in the Cascades of the Pacific Northwest. You can’t always just take what is discovered in Hawaii and translate it verbatim to, say, the Cascades.
The Hawaiian volcanoes are sitting right in the middle of the Pacific plate. Hot material in the mantle is rising from great depth and impinges on the Pacific plate. It begins to melt, at a depth of 50 kilometers or so, and that melt begins to accumulate and then rise upward – buoyant relative to the surroundings – until it reaches reservoirs within the crust where it’s stored temporarily until it erupts onto the surface.
Sunday’s eruption at Kilauea serves as “a solemn reminder of the sacredness ingrained in this landscape,” Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park said on social media. “The privilege to witness the creative forces of a new eruption comes with a responsibility to approach this place with reverence,” the national park added.
In native Hawaiian tradition, eruptions have spiritual significance and Kilauea’s summit is sacred, believed to be the home of Pele the Hawaiian volcano deity, according to the National Park Service.
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