deep Pahala earthquake swarm

[kalianna]

I still haven't completely weaned myself from looking at the various eruption sites and when I looked at the HVO earthquake site today I was surprised to see a large swarm of quakes near Pahala. some shallow but many 25-30 mi. deep. I haven't found any info about this other than a reference on Hawaii Tracker. Does anyone know what's up with this?

[glinda]

This may help you form an image of what is happening there..

https://marineemlab.ucsd.edu/Projects/Lo...ilauea.pdf

[kalianna]

Okay, that was a little more than I bargained for. [] But I think it says that this is part of what happens as magma moves down the southern flank and the quakes are nothing to get my knickers in a twist about, correct?

[glinda]

How about...

The image I have is that over time, continuously, even during all that other noise we experienced last year, there is, as if in the background, the whole process of magma getting into Kilauea to begin with. Whereas most of all the stuff we see, earthquakes, deformation, tremor, eruptive kind stuff, is associated with magma leaving.

Associated with that deeper activity is that area in the southwest corner of the subaerial part of Kilauea that produces earthquake swarms and large bursts, often seen the strongest on the DESD seismic station, of tremor pretty consistently over time.

There are all sorts of ideas of how much magma Kilauea gets and how it gets from it's source to the summit magma chambers, and a lot of that has to be inferred. But that one area in the Southwest has been pretty consistent in having those deep clearly delineated events over the years. Alls to say it's believed to be signs of incoming magma.. evidence we'll have more eruptions in the future.

Another paper by Tom and Fred, this one titled Two Hundred Years of Magma Transport and Storage at Kïlauea Volcano, Hawai‘i, 1790–2008 goes into all that a lot more..

https://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/1806/pdf/pp1806_report.pdf

[kalianna]

Thanks, Glinda. I'll read the article you posted tonight.