HAWAIIAN VOLCANO OBSERVATORY DAILY UPDATE U.S. Geological Survey Tuesday, January 13, 2015 9:03 AM HST Activity Summary: #Kīlauea #Volcano continues to erupt at its summit and within its East Rift Zone. In the East Rift Zone, the tip of the June 27th lava flow remained stalled; however, active surface breakouts up slope of the front continued. A narrow flow lobe about 2.5 km (1.6 mi) upslope of #Pahoa Marketplace continued to advance toward the north-northeast. This morning, Civil Defense reported that this lobe has advanced about 18 m (20 yds) since yesterday. DI inflationary tilt, along with a rising lava lake level, was recorded last night at the summit. June 27th Lava Flow Observations: The flow that advanced toward Pahoa Marketplace in past weeks remained stalled approximately 800 m (0.5 miles or 880 yards) from the intersection of Highway 130 and Pāhoa Village Road; however, there were active breakouts about 275 m (300 ys) behind the stalled front this morning; one of these breakouts may have sparked a brush fire captured as rapid northward movement of smoke during the day and glow at night until midnight. In addition, the narrow flow lobe about 2.5 km (1.6 mi) upslope of Pahoa Marketplace advanced about 18 m (20 yds) toward the north-northeast since yesterday morning according to #Hawaii County Civil Defense. This lobe has entered a drainage area leading to the steepest-descent path that crosses Highway 130 about 1 km (0.6 mi) south of the #Makuʻu Farmers Market, but the flow is still about 3.3 km (2.1 mi) uplsope from Highway 130 (straight-line distance to intersection of highway 130 and steepest descent line) and moving slowly. Other areas of surface lava were also active 0.9 - 3.5 km (0.5 - 2 mi) upslope of the Pahoa Marketplace during #HVOs most recent overflight on January 6. Breakouts further upslope, near the True/Mid-Pacific #geothermal well pad, may also be active. The next overflight is panned for this afternoon, weather permitting. Puʻu ʻŌʻō Observations: The tiltmeter on the north flank of Puʻu ʻŌʻō cone continued to record very weak inflation over the past 3+ days. All other monitoring data indicated no significant changes at Puʻu ʻŌʻō. The most recent measurement of sulfur dioxide emissions from all East Rift Zone vents was about 250 tonnes per day on December 19, 2014. Summit Observations: DI inflationary tilt started at 6:20 pm last night as recorded at the summit. The summit #lava lake quickly rose to its pre-DI event level while displaying minor lava level fluctuations associated with changes in spattering behavior, which are also manifested as variations in tremor amplitudes and gas release. Small amounts of particulate material were carried aloft by the plume. The average emission rate of sulfur dioxide was around 5,400 tonnes/day for the week ending on January 6.
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 19:31:36 +0000