Front of lava flow emerges back into view, continues into forest

After spending several days out of sight, the front from the so-called June 27 lava flow from Kilauea has emerged from a crack in the ground, U.S. geologists reported Friday.

A Civil Defense overflight Friday morning found surface flows around the flow front remaining active. Lava continues to issue from the ground crack and enter a forest preserve, creating thick smoke plumes, according to the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.

Small breakouts also remain active closer to the Pu’u O’o vent, roughly halfway along the length of the June 27 flow. None of these breakouts was very vigorous, though some are creeping into the forest and generating smoke, scientists said.

At midday Thursday, the farthest active lava was 7.4 miles from the vent and 1.6 miles from the east boundary of the Wao Kele o Puna Forest Reserve, advancing to the northeast.

Flows from the June 27 breakout pose no immediate threat to residential areas.

At Kilauea’s summit, the Halemaumau lava lake continued rising slowly late last week and was roughly 164 to 180 feet below the rim of an elliptical crater unofficially called Overlook crater.

The crater is about 520 by 690 feet and inside the eastern portion of Halemaumau Crater. The Overlook crater has been generally continuously active since it opened with a small explosion on March 19, 2008.

The eruption in Kilauea’s middle East Rift Zone started with a fissure eruption on Jan. 3, 1983, and continued with few interruptions at Pu’u O’o cone, or temporarily from vents within a few miles to the east or west. A fissure eruption on the upper east flank of Pu’u O’o on Sept. 21, 2011, drained the lava lakes and fed a lava flow (the so-called Peace Day flow) that advanced southeast through the abandoned Royal Gardens subdivision to the ocean within Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park in early December 2011.

The flows stalled and re-entered the ocean starting on Nov. 24, 2012, until activity started to decline and the ocean entry stopped on Aug. 20, 2013.

That flow was dead by early November.

The Kahaualea flow, which started from the spatter cone/lava lake at the northeast edge of the Pu’u O’o crater floor in mid-January 2013, was dead by late April.

But a new flow, informally called Kahaualea 2, became active in the same area in early May 2013. The Kahaualea 2 flow died following the June 27 breakout from the northeast flank of Pu’u O’o.