Hawai'i Volcano Blog

Recovery efforts have been frustratingly slow on all fronts during the nearly five years since the catastrophic Kīlauea eruption ended in September 2018, leaving a big wake of destruction. But work and property buyouts continue five years later.

Ocean swells interact with the ocean crust below, creating continuous ocean noise that travels around the Earth, including through our active volcanoes here in Hawai‘i.

Kīlauea’s activity from 2018 until 2023 has been compared to cycles of summit collapse and refilling of lava prior to 1924, but it also exhibited similar behavior during the 1967-68 Halema‘uma‘u eruption.

This summer marks 200 years since English missionary William Ellis visited KIlauea caldera with Hawaiian guides and published the first contemporary written observation of the volcano’s eruptive activity.

In this week’s Volcano Watch, international scientists come to the Big Island to resume a training course about volcano hazards monitoring.

In the latest Volcano Watch, Hawaiian Volcano Observatory scientists are looking for a new place to put a summit gas measuring station to replace the one destroyed by the 2022 Mauna Loa eruption.

Construction of the new U.S. Geological Survey research facility on the Big Island, which will house the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and Pacific Island Ecosystems Research Center, is expected to be completed by late 2025.

The highest level of lava in the past two centuries on KIlauea was reached in the first few months of 1894, according to the most recent Volcano Watch.

The summit eruption at Kīlauea volcano on the Big island has paused, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said Monday night.

An eruptive vent on the southwest side of Halema‘uma‘u crater has exhibited renewed lava fountaining since June 16 as it continues to pump lava into a lake in the far southwest portion of the crater.

This week’s Volcano Watch is dedicated to U.S. Geological Survey scientist Duane Champion, who helped unlock Pele’s secrets by studying the magnetic properties preserved in lava flows.

Lava fountain heights have decreased since the eruption onset, but remain up to about 30 feet high.

This week’s Volcano Watch explains how scientists at Hawaiian Volcano Observatory have been able to successfully forecast eruptions on the Big Island, although only an hour or so before it happens.

Kīlauea erupted on June 7, 2023 at 4:44 a.m. on Hawaiʻi Island. The volcano put on quite the spectacular lava show duing the first day of this eruption. Check out the video and slideshow.

On Thursday morning, one day after Kīlauea began erupting at 4:44 a.m. on Wednesday, Hawaiian Volcano Observatory has lowered  alert levels because the initial high effusion rates of lava and gas have declined, and no infrastructure is threatened. 

For the past two and half weeks, scientists have been monitoring earthquakes that were rumbling beneath the crater and along the southwest rift zone, which is located within Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park, and along the Nāmakaniopaio fault line, also within the park between Mauna Loa and Kīlauea.

With Halemaʻumaʻu crater quickly filling with lava Wednesday morning, an official at Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park said there is no bad place to watch Kīlauea’s latest eruption.

Halemaʻumaʻu Crater at the summit of Kilauea volcano is erupting, producing a burst of volcanic emissions starting at 4:44 a.m. Wednesday morning, according to the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.

At the U.S. Army Garrison Pōhakuloa Training Area on the Big island, scientists recently conducted two diverse projects: one about the Hawaiian bud moth and one about the 2022 Mauna Loa eruption.

The remote sensing technique, InSAR, detected deformation of a volcano previously considered inactive in Southeast Alaska.