Kīlauea Eruption Update, Day 6: December 26, 2020

In this Boxing Day update, we recap the events since Christmas Day and perhaps more importantly, review the new developments on the no-longer-filling lava lake at Kīlauea’s summit. The main vent became submerged and became inactive around 3am HST, while the western vent re-activated around the same time. The lava lake is now back-flowing into the inactive vent. We examine monitoring signals and imagery from USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory as usual, including the response of instruments along the volcano’s East Rift Zone that show relief from the caldera eruption, with no potential signs of eruption in the Lower East Rift Zone, with our frame-by-frame analysis and annotations on the images and diagrams. Finally, we review the refilling history of Kīlauea’s caldera through maps of its changing size and depth following the 1924 collapse, which we compare to the current, 2020 eruption. #2020kilaueaeruption https://youtu.be/NY9ohDaEth4