Kilauea’s latest lava shelf builds toward collapse in sea

Kilauea Volcano has given new meaning to the term “shelf life.”

The burgeoning lava shelf at the lava’s ocean entry point, called Kamokuna, continues to cling to its precarious perch.

The last shelf, also called a bench or delta, collapsed May 3, and this one has been building ever since.

It’s only a matter of time until this one, too, slides into the sea to spectacular effect, geophysicists say.

Such collapses are dangerous, and officials at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and Hawaii County Civil Defense routinely warn visitors to stay well back from the lava entry point.

In April 1993, one person died and a dozen were injured when the bench suddenly collapsed. The collapse also can pull part of the adjacent sea cliff with it.

Even absent a collapse, the water’s edge is hazardous. In 1994, two people standing near a lava entry site were caught off guard by a sudden wave and severely scalded.

When lava touches the ocean, it forms an acid-­laced steam plume and heats the surface water to temperatures capable of causing third-degree burns, the worst kind. Waves can also “explode” in a cloud of steam, hot water and so-called “tephra jets” — a combination of molten spatter, tiny glass fragments, and long glass filaments known as Pele’s hair.

At Kilauea’s summit caldera on Saturday, meanwhile, the fluctuating lava lake was about 85 feet below the floor of Halemaumau firepit. The surface flows, known as 61g, are rolling through empty land and pose no threat to surrounding communities, the U.S. Geological Survey said.