Kīlauea Report: Filling Resumes Before 1-Year Anniversary

Following last week’s minor drop of the crater floor, lava has resumed its filling within the lava lake, but has not fully recovered its recent loss. The active lake shows the most obvious rise in lava level, though the rest of the hardened crater floor continues to also be uplifted by lava injected below. The September 20 event now appears to be the result of an intrusion approximately 1 mile or 1.5 km directly below the lake within the summit, where earthquakes tracked the breaking rock around the intruding magma, augmented by the minor draining of surface lava. This in turn caused the crusted surface to sag, push down on the collected lava, and squeeze it up as large breakouts from the emergent cracks around the perimeter. Since then, activity has dwindled back to the persistent lake and the West Vent pond and cones. The “several meters” or yards drop of the inactive crust amounts to a partial month’s worth of lava build-up, which similarly delays any future spill-over onto the next down-dropped blocks. Within the active lake, an initial drop of 33 feet or 10 meters has since seen roughly 15 feet or 4.5 meters of recovery in the past 10 days, and yet despite the drop, the active lava lake remained visible from the usual public overlooks at all times. Gas emissions have remained around ~1000 tonnes per day when measured over the past two weeks, still significant enough to cause vog that impacts downwind communities, yet at the low end of the recently observed range. There is still no increased lava threat outside of Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park. This past week, the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park hosted two programs in commemoration of the eruption anniversary on September 29th, an “After Dark in the Park” evening talk and an afternoon outdoor program “On the Rim” at the exact minute of the 1-year milestone. Both programs are available in our content feed on the Hawaiʻi Tracker Facebook Group or the Hawaiʻi PODD YouTube channel. — That’s all this week! Join our special live video review of Kīlauea’s ongoing eruption at 5pm Hawaiʻi time weekly on Thursdays! To support our productions please like, share and subscribe! This content is funded by the Hawaiʻi County Waiwai Grant-In-Aid in association with Malama O Puna and by contributions from viewers like you! To donate, visit https://www.hawaiitracker.com/support. Mahalo! #Kilauea2022 #KilaueaErupts USGS Photo & Caption: Following a slight drop in the lava lake and subsidence of the crater floor on September 20, at the summit of Kīlauea, the lava lake level has remained several meters (above ten feet) below its rim. USGS photo by M. Patrick on September 23, 2022.