Kilauea has experienced seven major pauses in lava production and a bunch of smaller ones since Nov. 8, with the temporary stoppages gaining in frequency over the past month.

The latest pause started Sunday and continued into Tuesday.

Has the 3-month-old eruption lost its mojo, the stammering and sputtering a sign the end is near?

Not necessarily so, says the scientist in charge of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. In an interview Tuesday, Ken Hon said he expects the volcano to continue erupting for at least another month or two.

Hon said the ground deflation and inflation trends at the summit and ground tremors that accompany the stop-start pattern have made the volcano more predictable as of late. And those indicators suggest the eruption is not over. In fact, the current eruption may have started again by the time you read this.

Why is Kilauea pausing?

Hon said he suspects there’s either something temporarily blocking the chamber feeding the lava lake or some force deep in the earth slowing the pulse of the flow.

“We don’t know which one it is,” he said. “We can’t get down there and look at the lava up close. It’s not accessible. It’s too dangerous.”

While the stop-start pattern that has emerged since November is different from what happened during the four-month eruption that preceded it, Hon said the pattern is reminiscent of the Kilauea eruption that buried the town of Kalapana under 60 feet of lava in 1990.

However, there is one big difference: Nothing suggests this flow is going anywhere outside Halemaumau Crater.

Like the last eruption, which started Dec. 20, 2020, this one is likely staying within the crater. It is also similar in eruption rate and expected duration as lava production has gradually declined, Hon said.

The major difference between the two is the pauses.

The current eruption has paused seven times — anywhere from 12 to 72 hours in length — since Nov. 8, and there have been seven or eight smaller pauses as well. In the past month there have been two significant stoppages a week.

Between the two eruptions, the crater has filled up with 800 feet of lava — a large lake by historical standards, Hon said.

During some of the pauses, including this weekend’s, the lava lake surface hardens and crusts over. But the molten lava remains.

“There’s a lot of liquid sitting underneath that crust,” Hon said.

The 1959 Kilauea Iki eruption left 400 feet of lava, and it didn’t completely solidify until the 1990s.

“This is not going to disappear anytime soon,” Hon said of the Halemaumau lava lake. “It will take many decades until the lava crystallizes.”

The fact that there are pauses in the current eruption makes visiting the volcano for a viewing a little tricky. Officials recommend checking the HVO and Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park websites before going to the viewing areas in the park.

Hon said that if you can catch a glimpse just after the volcano erupts again, within five to 10 hours afterward, the crater really lights up the night.

Hon said 25% more lava surges to the surface when the volcano restarts from a pause.

“If you hit it right, you can see something spectacular,” he said.

Tuesday’s HVO volcano update said the trend in ground inflation indicated that the eruption could restart within 24 hours.

In a related topic, Hon said Monday afternoon’s magnitude-4.3 earthquake east- northeast of Pahala produced light shaking but had no observable impact on the eruption of Kilauea.