#kaluapele

Ongoing episodic eruption within summit caldera of Big Island’s Kīlauea volcano that began Dec. 23, 2024, started its fifth eruptive event at about 3 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 21, after about 4 days on pause.

Hawaiian Volcano Observatory reported the newest eruptive activity in the Big Island volcano’s summit caldera began at about 9:15 a.m. Wednesday, with a small lava flow exiting the north vent following low-level continuous lava spattering that started at about 5:40 a.m. from the same vent.

People around the world greet the New Year with fireworks and other celebrations. Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park visitors got to greet 2025 with displays of lava fountaining from the southwest part of Kaluapele, the summit caldera of Kīlauea volcano.

Visitors coming to view the 10-day-old eruption inside the volcano’s caldera at Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park should expect a daytime traffic change and be aware that air quality could be bad this weekend.

There are eyes watching and waiting for those awe-inspiring moments with more nefarious reasons in mind. “Thieves are looking for the right moment to steal your stuff,” said Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park in a recent Facebook post.

The low level eruptive activity has gone on for more than a day, after the eruption resumed Thursday evening. Eruptions in the summit region typically last about a week to more than a year. This eruption began during the early morning of Dec. 23.

This is the Big Island volcano’s third eruption this year, and all three happened in different parts of the mountain — the Southwest Rift Zone, East Rift Zone and now the summit caldera. The last time eruptions happened in all of these areas in the same year was 50 years ago!

Park rangers and officials warn those who do otherwise do so at great risk. In a split second, awe, wonder and amazement can change to fear, catastrophe and tragedy.

“Inflation of the summit following the shutdown indicates that a resumption in activity is possible in the coming days, but not certain,” said Hawaiian Volcano Observatory in its daily Kīlauea update just after 9:30 a.m. today.

Vigorous fountaining from vents in the southwest corner of Halemaʻmaʻu Crater within Kaluapele, the volcano’s summit caldera, rapidly died down a few minutes just before 11 a.m. Lava then began draining back into tthe vent at nearly the same time summit tiltmeters started recording a change from deflation to inflation.

Fountaining of lava began to increase in vigor by about 11 a.m. today, signaling the onset of the second episode of the eruption, which started early Monday within and remains confined to the volcano’s summit caldera and downdropped block.

A team of scientists from Aotearoa New Zealand teamed up with scientists from the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory in December 2022 to carry out a small pilot study of atmospheric corrosion rates on the Island of Hawai‘i.

The observatory’s tower on the edge of the Kīlauea caldera inside Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park will be demolished today after work was postponed from Thursday. It is the last remnants of the former observatory and museum complex that was closed after it was damaged beyond repair in 2018 during the 2018 eruption, lava flow and summit eruption of the Big Island volcano.

The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory reported this morning that quake counts from the past 24 hours beneath the caldera and upper East Rift Zone decreased by about 65%.

There were about 50 quakes beneath the volcano’s summit and 100 under the upper East Rift Zone compared with 20 and 50 the day before.

Over the past 24 hours, there were approximately 25 earthquakes detected beneath Kaluapele (Kīlauea caldera) and 95 earthquakes detected beneath the Upper East Rift Zone, mostly at depths of 0.6–1.8 miles beneath the ground surface.

Hawaiian Volcano Observatory goes into detail about the latest Kīlauea eruption.

Seismicity remains above background levels. Ground deformation also continues beneath Halemaʻumaʻu and the south caldera region. Magma has been pressurizing the system beneath Halemaʻumaʻu and Kīlauea’s south caldera region for several weeks.

Recent visitors to Kaluapele, the summit area of Kīlauea, have left behind roasting pans filled with meat, poke to unopened packages of Chips Ahoy cookies, fruit, candy bars and burning incense sticks. Officials from Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park say they’ve been left as offerings to pay respects to Pelehonuamea, the elemental deity of volcanism and […]

It’s important to evaluate what generates such large eruptions of the Big Island volcano because a similar eruption today would be devastating to communities surrounding Kīlauea summit and downwind.