Small, brief earthquake swarm rattles at Kīlauea summit this morning

A small, brief earthquake swarm rumbled 1-2 miles beneath Kīlauea summit this morning. The volcano has shown signs of elevated unrest with steady rates of earthquakes since Aug. 22.

Kīlauea is not erupting at this time. No active lava has been observed since June 19. A live-stream video of the inactive western lava lake area can be viewed here. There is no unusual activity has been noted along the volcano’s East Rift Zone or Southwest Rift Zone.

The unrest is currently confined within Kīlauea’s summit region. If it continues, officials with Hawaiian Volcano Observatory state it could escalate to an eruption in the coming days, weeks or months. The activity could also decrease due to intrusion of magma underground or other changes, resulting in no eruption.

Tuesday night, summit tiltmeters tracked a gradual transition to deflation, which has continued steadily today. Since the end of the last eruption in June, the general trend has been slow, long-term summit inflation. Sulfur dioxide emissions from the summit remain low; the most recent SO2 emission rate of approximately 75 tonnes per day was measured on Aug. 24.

The seismic and tilt data indicate that Kīlauea’s summit is becoming increasingly pressurized. Similar episodes of earthquake and ground deformation activity occurred in November 2020 and August 2021, prior to eruptions in December 2020 and September 2021. Levels of activity are expected to rise and fall during this period of unrest.

For information on Kīlauea hazards, see https://www.usgs.gov/observatories/hawaiian-volcano-observatory/hazards.

See the Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park website for visitor information: https://www.nps.gov/havo/index.htm.