05-02-2018, 06:09 PM
Kilauea has produced some mighty impressive volcanic eruptions & the take-home I have gotten from attending many USGS talks is:
For the last 200+ years we have been in a fairly un-eventful phase & that Kilauea swings from very "eventful" phases to less "eventful "phases...
What are these more "eventful" phases like, you may ask?
Every few centuries, Kilauea has pyroclastic eruption events that can fling ash up into the jet stream, has experienced magma chamber draining series of eruptions that created the current HUGE Kilauea crater (Over 2mi dia) & has had periods of high pyroclastic flow events that can cause searing steam/ash/lava flows that scream miles down the summit - Keoneheleelei - may have heard of the flow in 1790 that took out warriors with Kiwala`o... many other eruptions happened that century to create the footprints still on the Kau Desert Trail...
https://www.nps.gov/havo/learn/historycu...prints.htm
Please do not make the assumption that Kilauea cannot do a type of eruption, just because it has not happened in a couple of centuries... as this is what the USGS has warned, we are approaching the normal swing of the phases to enter into a more "eventful" phase....
WHEN that will happen is a guess,
IF it will happen is a continuation of the geology that Kilauea has been built on...
For the last 200+ years we have been in a fairly un-eventful phase & that Kilauea swings from very "eventful" phases to less "eventful "phases...
What are these more "eventful" phases like, you may ask?
Every few centuries, Kilauea has pyroclastic eruption events that can fling ash up into the jet stream, has experienced magma chamber draining series of eruptions that created the current HUGE Kilauea crater (Over 2mi dia) & has had periods of high pyroclastic flow events that can cause searing steam/ash/lava flows that scream miles down the summit - Keoneheleelei - may have heard of the flow in 1790 that took out warriors with Kiwala`o... many other eruptions happened that century to create the footprints still on the Kau Desert Trail...
https://www.nps.gov/havo/learn/historycu...prints.htm
Please do not make the assumption that Kilauea cannot do a type of eruption, just because it has not happened in a couple of centuries... as this is what the USGS has warned, we are approaching the normal swing of the phases to enter into a more "eventful" phase....
WHEN that will happen is a guess,
IF it will happen is a continuation of the geology that Kilauea has been built on...