12-04-2013, 06:34 PM
quote:Well, that depends on what you mean by "normal". Stromboli, for example, has been erupting continuously for several thousand years. Kilauea seems to alternate between erupting along the rift zones and from the summit. The Ai Laau flow mentioned earlier, which includes all the land in the main Puna subdivisions of Keaau ahupuaa (Fern Forest, Hawaiian Acres, Orchidland, and HPP), was the product of a summit eruption centered near the current location of Thurston lava tube that lasted for a couple of hundred years. After that the summit collapsed and formed the caldera with a lava lake, and since that cooled, eruptions have happened along the rift zones. Eventually it will shift back.
Originally posted by Carey
From the few meetings I have gone to the Pu`u O`o eruption is not in any way a "normal" eruption, either for Kilauea or any other observed volcano.