Hawai'i Volcano Blog

Between seismic swarms leading to sleepless nights, and sulfur smells leading to wrinkled noses, it has been a somewhat interesting week for Hawai‘i Island residents.

One of the fundamental premises of geology is that the “key to understanding the future is to understand the past.”

The Koa‘e fault system connects Kīlauea’s East and Southwest Rift Zones south of the caldera.

Major earthquakes cannot be predicted.

By 1930, Hawai‘i had earthquake report cards that were distributed to the community by HVO staff for people to write detailed information about what they observed during earthquakes.

An exciting and major improvement on the new HVO website is that it’s more mobile-friendly.

Over the past two decades, the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) has set up a camera network system to monitor visual changes at Kīlauea and Mauna Loa volcanoes.

In the past, Halema‘uma‘u crater was described as being transformed into a pit of “tumbled masses of rock blocks” after drainage or collapse of Kīlauea summit.

Last week, Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park was able to open the Kīlauea Overlook to the public for the first time since the lower East Rift Zone eruption and summit collapse in 2018.

Geodesy is the science of accurately measuring and understanding the Earth’s geometric shape, gravity field, and orientation in space — and how these change through time.

Here in Hawai‘i, we can rest assured that should Kīlauea again produce ash clouds of any significance, the Nāʻālehu radar stands guard, 24/7, to assist in rapid response.

The black streak, more prosaically called a water cascade, has reappeared sporadically in the past two years.

The recent first anniversary of the appearance of water at Kīlauea’s summit is a reminder of how much has changed since the end of the 2018 eruption and summit collapse.

On July 25, 2019, ponded water was first observed within Halema‘uma‘u at the summit of Kīlauea Volcano.

There are approximately 80 seismograph stations on the Island of Hawai‘i, most of which are located near volcanic vents and rift zones.

“Low-frequency earthquakes aren’t unusual at volcanoes, but there’s no other example of this kind of repetition or longevity anywhere in the world. Ultimately, over 1 million earthquakes were found from 1999 to 2018.”

“Signs of the battle between Maui and Kuna are found higher on the Wailuku River.”

Dates and times are subject to change based on aircraft availability and weather.

What continues to impress me about this job is how one job can offer so much variety.

Technicians at HVO engineer and maintain the network of stations that monitor the active volcanoes in the state of Hawai‘i.