VIDEO: Still No Lava

Videographer Mick Kalber released this video of an overflight of the East Rift Zone he took with Paradise Helicopters on Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2018.

Kalber stated:

This morning was our first day visiting the eruption site without the TFR [Temporary Flight Restrictions] in place, which prevented us from flying below three thousand feet. We got some great shots of the new beaches from Kapoho to Pohoiki. The ponds to the north that have existed since shortly after the lava hit the ocean are now gone—filled in with black sand.

A small island is still just offshore nearby, but ocean swells, particularly this winter will most likely destroy it. Pohoiki’s black sand beach is stunning, and sports at least three inland ponds, but the lack of flowing water in them will probably turn them stagnant, and not good for swimming.

The home that survived just to the west of Kapoho Crater (Green Mountain) is a sight to behold, with lava having on every side, and right up to the porch, she still stands! Totally inaccessible, of course, but a wonder nonetheless. The top of a storage container peaks out through the hardened pahoehoe near the empty lava river, it’s bed of a’a 20-40 feet below the river banks.

Several homes are still standing in a large kipuka in lower Leilani. A road still exists there, with a number of homes completely isolated by tons of Pele’s hardened lava.

Fissure 22 is now the most perfect cone shop of any vent I’ve ever seen here, she sits right to the south of PGV, but like all the fissures in a line there, effuses no lava.

Only a few fissures were steaming today, and not much at that. Even more are completely quiet, no lava, no steam.

Fissure 8 still shows very small puffs of steam from a break the frozen lake at the bottom of the vent, otherwise, nothing.

Stranded cars, homes, belongings [and] roads suddenly appearing in the black lava rock, going absolutely nowhere [are] common sights in and around the flow field.

On the other hand, birds have returned to the eruption site, and it’s truly remarkable how green things are getting! And some lucky residents, whose homes survived the onslaught, are returning home as well, wondering why they are so blessed to be able to do so, when so many lost everything.

It is now been nearly two months since the eruption went into a pause, or lull, as scientists call it.

She is still showing no signs of reactivation, almost no seismic at the summit, downslope, or in-between and may not resume eruptive activity. The lack of seismicity both at the summit and the lower east rift zone seem to support that projection, but time will tell, Pele is not talking.