Kilauea steadily pumps lava seaward as Mauna Loa twitches

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COURTESY U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY

A lava pond has been active in this pit for over a year, and the time-lapse camera tracks changes in the pond activity.

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COURTESY USGS

An aerial view of Halemaumau shows a normal spattering range at the south lake margin. New golden-brown spatter covers previous streaks of overflow, which are darker. The plume of smoke was light at the time of the recent spatter, allowing a view of the southern wall, which recently experienced two more collapses and exposed the lighter rock beneath.

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Lava from Kilauea Volcano continues to flow into the ocean as the summit caldera spits and spatters like a witch’s cauldron.

On Saturday the lava lake’s surface was 174 feet below the rim of the Overlook crater and generating light tremors as it roiled, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said.

A second eruption site, the Puu Oo vent on the east rift zone, continues to produce enough lava to feed the ocean entry point at Kamokuna. What scientists call the 61g flow poses no threat to surrounding communities, but Hawaii County Civil Defense cautions tourists not to approach too closely, especially at the ocean entry.

A short-lived breakout on the cliff above the ocean delta produced a brief episode of “fire hose” spurting Saturday but has subsided, the observatory said.

“The ocean entry is a hazardous area,” warns the observatory, run by the U.S. Geological Survey. “Hazards include walking on uneven, glassy lava flow surfaces and around unstable, vertical sea cliffs. Venturing too close to an ocean entry on land or the ocean exposes you to flying debris from sudden explosive interaction between lava and water. Also, the lava delta is unstable because it is built on unconsolidated lava fragments and sand. This loose material can easily be eroded away by surf, causing the new land to become unsupported and slide into the sea.”

During the last collapse on May 3, the shelf disappeared within five minutes, according to volcano scientist Matt Patrick.

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Meanwhile, Mauna Loa, which last erupted in 1984, continues to twitch like a dreaming dog.

In its Volcano Watch report on Sept. 14, the observatory said the mountain remains under “yellow” alert, one step up from green.

The alert upgrade, on Sept. 17, 2015, followed more than a year of inflation as magma slowly filled shallow reservoirs beneath the summit and upper southwest rift zone. This was “new behavior” after several years without any magma activity, scientists said.

Since then rates of inflation and seismicity have varied but are still considered elevated, the scientists said. More small quakes — less than magnitude 3 — are shaking the mountain than at any time since 1984, they added.