New Eruption at Kīlauea's Summit
By Lichen Forster
View of the lava in Halema‘uma‘u crater, at the summit of Kīlauea, photo by Kevianna Hawkins-Adams.
As of Sept. 29, Kīlauea is erupting once again - but don’t fear. Volcanic eruptions aren’t always the blow-your-top, run-for-cover nightmare scenarios you see on TV. Hawaiʻi’s volcanoes in particular are known for their consistently gentle eruptions. Their peaceful nature owes to the chemistry of the lava, which is made of basalt.
“Basalt is very low in silica content, compared to the types of lavas that are produced at more explosive volcanoes such as Mount St. Helens, or Mount Fuji,” said Michael Zoeller, a Hawaiʻi Volcano Observatory (HVO) field geologist and GIS analyst. “Those tend to be [made of] rhyolites or dacites, which are much higher in silica content…[which] means it’s stickier; it’s more like molasses, less like water.”
Stickier magma traps more volcanic gases until a point of overpressure where the volcano “blows its top off.” This is not the case for most Hawaiian eruptions, because our magma has relatively low viscosity (stickiness), so gas can escape easier and with less fuss.
Hawaiian eruptions can still cause harm; the 2018 lower Puna eruption destroyed 612 residences and 13.7 square miles of land, but geologists have very little to suspect that the current eruption poses any kind of danger to us. The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has Kīlauea on a code orange alert; the ʻwatch’ level. This means that there’s an eruption going on, but that there are no imminent hazards from it.
Close up view on the lava flowing out of the Halema‘uma‘u crater at the summit of Kīlauea, photo by Kevianna Hawkins-Adams.
“It’s the perfect eruption,” said Dr. Cheryl Gansecki, affiliate faculty at the University of Hawaiʻi Hilo (UH Hilo). “It’s contained, it’s visible to visitors now, so people can see the lava safely...the only downside, really, is that the vog is back again. But from my perspective...having a volcano erupting in your backyard...I mean, that’s what you want.”
Gansecki has been on a cooperative research project with UH Hilo and the HVO for ten years, as well as being a volunteer on the geology crew at HVO. She visits the volcano about once a week depending on its activity to help the field group reach its objectives.
How Deep is Deep?
The current eruption is taking place in the summit caldera; Halemaʻumaʻu crater. During the 2018 eruption, magma moved from the summit to the Lower East Rift Zone, causing the crater to sink. By the end of the eruption, Halemaʻumaʻu had sunk 1,600 feet according to the National Parks Service.
Top left: the lake in the Halemaʻumaʻu crater in July 2019, top right: the lake in the Halemaʻumaʻu crater on December 20, 2020, bottom: The lava lake in the Halemaʻumaʻu crater on December 24, Photos by USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.
“That new pit up in Halemaʻumaʻu was so deep that it was below the groundwater table,” Gansecki said. “There hadn’t ever been water seen out there before - that we know of - because the groundwater table is pretty low up there.”
A groundwater table is a place where the soil or rocks are saturated with water. Previously, the crater either hosted too much magma below its surface or was too high for water to get in, but on Aug. 1, 2019, HVO confirmed a growing pond of water in the crater. It was a first in Kīlauea’s recorded history, and eventually became a lake with a depth of 160 feet.
On Dec. 20, 2020, HVO detected a glow in the crater and the lake soon vaporized. Kīlauea’s latest eruption started and a lava lake soon appeared. By the end of that eruption in May 2021, the lava lake had reached a depth of approximately 700 ft.
On Sept. 29, the current eruption began.
“It is in the same location [though] not exactly the same vents; there were new cracks that opened up,” Gansecki said.
Full view of Halema‘uma‘u crater from the Devastation Trail lookout at night, photo by Kevianna Hawkins-Adams.
“A lot of eruptions tend to start with really high effusion rates,” Zoeller said.
Effusion rates describe the volume of magma generated over a given time period, and is one of the things Zoeller is studying with the current eruption.
“The eruption starts with a lot of trapped gas releasing from the top of the magma chamber,” Zoeller said. “And that propels out an exceptional amount of lava at the start. Within the first hour of this eruption, we filled more than 30 feet of the crater, but because the effusion rate tends to tail off as some of that trapped gas gets expended, the filling rate has slowed substantially.”
Close-up view of Halema‘uma‘u crater at the summit of Kīlauea, from Devastation Trail lookout, photo by Kevianna Hawkins-Adams.
Right now, the filling rate is only a foot per day. So far, this eruption’s contribution to the lava lake is 200 feet.
Another factor to the depth of the lake is that the crater is currently shaped like an inverted cone.
“The higher you get the more lateral space you have to cover to raise the level higher,” Zoeller said. “It also opens up even wider as you get onto each next shelf in the crater.” This means that as the lava climbs onto each successive continental shelf, it will need to spread out more horizontally before it can build vertically.
I See Lava! I See Lava!
The depth gained during the current eruption has pushed the lava up far enough to where Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park (HVNP) has been able to set up a safe viewing zone where visitors can actually see the lava lake.
“After that 2018 collapse, we brought in an NPS [National Parks Service] geomorphology team,” said HVNP Public Affairs Specialist Jessica Ferracane. “All viewing of the eruptions right here are at the edge of the Kīlauea caldera, and those are very unstable cliff edges, especially resulting from 2018. There’s a lot of undercutting to those cliff edges, there are earth cracks now that you can’t see, [and] sinkholes have been opening up.”
View of Halema‘uma‘u crater at the summit of Kīlauea, photo by Kevianna Hawkins-Adams.
Visitors can see the lava lake from Keanakākoʻi point. The area was scouted by the geomorphologists before it was opened to the public; the main concern was that the unsuspecting surface hid dangers like earth cracks or lava tubes. Fortunately, it didn’t, though future earthquakes would prompt HVNP to evacuate the area and assess the area again before reopening. Other viewing sites were similarly checked by scientists before they were opened to the public. As with every time Kīlauea erupts, the park has seen an increase in visitors.
She’s Gonna Blow
Volcanic eruptions can be predicted beforehand - to an extent. The best indicators that an eruption may begin soon are seismic activity (namely earthquakes) and a geological phenomenon called deformation. An increase in shallow earthquakes causes geologists to “run up the red flag,” as UH Hilo geology professor and research associate at HVO Dr. Richard Hazlett puts it. That metaphorical red flag means that an eruption could start within days, though if the earthquakes are at the summit it could mean an eruption is hours away. The other indicator, deformation, is the result of magma moving and changing the physical landscape of the volcano.
View of Halema‘uma‘u crater at the summit of Kīlauea during the mid-afternoon, photo by Kevianna Hawkins-Adams.
“Before a balloon pops, it has to fill up and swell,” said Hazlett. “Well, the volcano does the same thing; it will swell up with magma. But more immediately, right before the eruption, the mountain begins to shrink.”
Hazlett says that this is a sign the magma reservoir has ruptured and is releasing magma up towards the surface, opening new fractures as it goes. Within a few hours, the volcano could be erupting.
However, earthquakes and deformation don’t always precipitate an eruption; they’re signs that magma inside the volcano has moved, but don’t necessarily mean that lava will make it to the surface.
View of Halema‘uma‘u crater from the Devastation Trail lookout during the afternoon, photo by Kevianna Hawkins-Adams.
“It’s like learning about a new house pet…[it] has a personality,” Hazlett said. “[Kīlauea is] a couple of hundred thousand years old, and we can only really see clearly back to 1823...you’ve got to be a little bit humble about the scale of things.”
While there are indicators and probabilities that can be made about an eruption’s start, when it ends is much more difficult to predict.
“We’ve seen it settle into cyclic patterns, where activity might drop off for a while and then pick back up,” Zoeller said. “I don’t think any of us are expecting a massive ramp up in activity based on what we’re seeing right now...but in terms of continuing as it was, versus slowing down more...it really could go either way, at this point.”
UH Hilo Students and Alumni Work With HVO
UH Hilo’s proximity to Kīlauea, allows its geology majors to gain hands-on experience with volcanology before graduation.
“There are other things that we did with students in 2018 that were firsts for science,” Hazlett said. “One of them was that the students working with another adjunct faculty member took samples of lava that we collected in the field at the time, and analyzed them just a few hours later.” Students could determine the chemical composition of samples, see how the chemistry changed throughout the eruption, and from that information make accurate predictions about what would happen next.
“[That] had never happened before in the science of volcanoes, anywhere in the world,” Hazlett said.
David Quinones is a UH Hilo senior getting his B.A. in geology and is employed with the Research Cooperation of the University of Hawaiʻi (RCUH). Right now, he’s preparing rock samples from Kīlauea so they can be analyzed for their geochemistry.
“It tells us a lot about how the material moved underground before it erupted out,” Quinones said. “We know that some crystals only form at certain temperatures, and bigger crystals let us know that generally it was sitting at one location for a bit. Glass forms in rapid cooling at temperatures that do not allow crystals to form.”
Rock samples from Quinones' lab.
By understanding the chemistry and comparing data from past eruptions, Quinones says that geologists can infer if the rocks came from a new location or the same source as the past.
Recently, Quinones worked with Dr. Jeffrey Johnson, an associate geology professor at Boise State University, to set up infrasound sensors to record sounds inside the volcano. This helps tell geologists where magma is moving. Quinones has also joined Dr. Stephen Lundblad, a UH Hilo geology professor, who takes student volunteers out to Kīlauea to measure deformation.
HVO currently employs many UH Hilo graduates, including 2014 grad Liliana deSmither and 1996 grad Dr. David A. Phillips.
deSmither has been working with HVO for five years through RCUH. She does field work, which entails making observations, collecting samples, taking photos and videos, and measuring various features of the lava lake, as well as updating HVO’s website. While at UH Hilo, deSmither was involved in the geology department’s projects and worked with the Center for the Study Active Volcanoes to give summer training to international scientists.
Full view of the Halema‘uma‘u crater during the day, photo by Kevianna Hawkins-Adams.
“All of the professors and staff in the geology department were so supportive and passionate about their work,” deSmither said. “They had a huge influence on my career path.”
Phillips received his undergraduate from UH Hilo and his PhD from UH Mānoa. During both segments of his education, Phillips did volunteer work at HVO. In Jan. 2020, he was hired as HVO’s Deputy Scientist in Charge.
“[There are] lots of connections of people who work for and with the observatory and people who have been UH Hilo students,” Phillips said. “I think the connections between UH Hilo and HVO are so strong...we also have people from the Computer Science department working closely with HVO when they’re students, and of course we work closely with professors.”
Visiting the Summit
Close-up view of Halema‘uma‘u crater during the day, photo by Kevianna Hawkins-Adams.
A hazard whilst viewing this eruption is the increased presence of yellowjacket wasps (hopeʻō) at viewing areas. Jessica Ferracane says that they really like human food, and have been so drawn to these areas where people are increasingly coming and leaving crumbs or scraps behind.
“Yellowjackets are very aggressive, dangerous, introduced nonnative stinging pests,” Ferracane said. “They also love syrupy drinks. I saw some lady pour out something that was in her Hydro Flask and the wasps were on it, [it was] like a sea of hornets. It was pretty scary.”
Ferracane recommends not eating at all in areas where hopeʻō warning signs are posted. She also suggests that anyone planning a visit to see the lava look at the NPS website first. A page on the current eruption provides extensive information on safety hazards, viewing sites, and eruption viewing tips.