Watching the earthquake swarm?

[dobanion]

You can see the smoke from 3 of the summit webcams. Best one is the one up on Mauna Loa Rd looking down. Looks like a fairly long stretch of fissures.

Last time there was a eruption in this area (Dec 1974) it was a very short eruption.

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

I found this cam in the Ka’u Desert looking north showing a lengthy area of steam, but didn’t see the Mauna Loa Road cam:

https://www.nps.gov/media/webcam/view.ht...DE74D2DABA

[MyManao]

but didn’t see the Mauna Loa Road cam..

All of HVO's cameras, or most of them at least, are found via the camera icons on their earthquake maps.. as seen here..

https://www.usgs.gov/volcanoes/mauna-loa?inst=101761

Just click on any of the blue with black dot icons on the map and the associated camera will popup..

(note: I am hoping this URL is set right, if not follow the instrument choices on the right side navigation panel to select cameras..)

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

All of HVO's cameras, or most of them at least

Found it, thanks!

[kalianna]

Woke up to the eruption message so checked the East Rift Zone cameras and saw nothing and then saw these posts. WTF? Peleʻs one mysterious lady erupting wherever she darn well pleases despite the earthquake trail.

[MyManao]

Peleʻs one mysterious lady..

But it does make sense, well sort of.. imagine..

The volcano has been refilling.. and as the magma comes up into the center, under the summit region, the magma spreads out to fill whatever voids it encounters off to the sides, east and west. And we note since this refilling started it hasn’t found much in the way to the east side.. but we had that flurry of activity to the west in the recent past. Then when things went quiet, and central filling resumed, eventually it got high enough to find a path to the east side. But to get to that height in the system it now is higher than it was when it went west.. so the pressure of that higher column, while initially inflating, breaking rock, causing EQs along the eastern side, was still being exerted on the magma that previously went west. And, because the path to the surface has already been broken on the west side the pressure was easier to be released there.. and it did so without much in the way of seismic noise because that ground had already been broken and filled earlier.

My sense.. again that word (sense) which I use to suggest it’s a feeling not a prediction based on specific data and all that.. is that this will be a short lived event. Of course, who can say, right? But the summit has only dropped a little bit and the tilt plot suggests it’s winding down already.. but we’ll see.

[terracore]

Aerial footage:

https://www.usgs.gov/media/videos/aerial...AS6PJaWPvX

https://www.usgs.gov/media/videos/flyove...ZMXn8WoH2w

[MyManao]

The eruption is pau

From: https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/hans-public/volcano/hi3

KILAUEA (VNUM #332010)
19°25'16" N 155°17'13" W, Summit Elevation 4091 ft (1247 m)
Current Volcano Alert Level: WATCH
Current Aviation Color Code: ORANGE

The eruption that began southwest of Kīlauea’s summit at approximately 12:30 a.m. HST this morning, June 3, has paused. However, activity in this region remains dynamic and could change quickly. HVO continues to closely monitor Kīlauea and will issue additional notices as needed.  

Visual observations suggest that effusion of lava ceased by approximately 12:30 p.m. HST today. Lava flows were sluggish between 11–12 p.m. HST and had ceased moving by approximately 12:30 p.m. HST. However, areas of incandescence and elevated volcanic gas emissions continue. At approximately 7:45 a.m. HST this morning, a sulfur dioxide emission rate of approximately 15,000 tonnes per day was measured; this emission rate had decreased to 12,000 tonnes per day as of noon and has likely decreased further this afternoon. Volcanic tremor, a signal associated with fluid movement, continues to be recorded on summit seismometers though at a slightly decreased intensity.  

Earthquake activity decreased greatly in the summit region of Kīlauea with the onset of the eruption. All seismicity for the last 8 hours is concentrated near Maunaiki at the western extent of the system of cracks that opened during this eruption. Ground deformation has been characterized by slow summit deflation since 2 a.m. HST, suggesting that magma may still be moving from summit storage to the southwest into the eruption area. 

A map of the approximate fissure locations is available here: https://www.usgs.gov/maps/june-3-2024-ki...erence-map  

A new webcam monitors the recent eruption site: https://www.usgs.gov/volcanoes/kilauea/s...-southwest

[kalianna]

Well, that was quick. Nice webcam!

[MyManao]

Well, that was quick..

Something to consider.. 

Although in the current instance there’s all sorts of reasons to expect this event to be as short-lived as the just concluded eruption, there have been times where a very low level eruption, that started at a much lower level than this one, instead of stopping soon after it spent the energy it took to get to the surface, went on for years. So, with this line..

Ground deformation has been characterized by slow summit deflation since 2 a.m. HST, suggesting that magma may still be moving from summit storage to the southwest into the eruption area. 

at the end of the HVO update suggesting a very low level continuation of this event still ongoing consider this.. 

At the end of the Puu Oo high fountains phase (July '86), as we had just gone through the 47th eruption at that vent, and were back in the office (HVO) for a few days when a helicopter pilot, who was flying a tour around the eruption site, noticed and radioed us with a report of a very small eruption happening about a mile and a half east of Puu Oo. And, amazingly, that new event hadn’t even trigger any concern instrumentally at the observatory. No obvious eq swarm, no heightened tremor signal, nothing that would have had us looking for it (electronic tilt and GPS didn't exist). It was just erupting.. and was so low level that when we got out there it was unremarkable. So much so that we hardly took any pictures. It wasn't flying in the air and there wasn't a lot of it. It was just lava oozing out of the ground. But we took the measurements we normally did when we were in the area and documented what was going on and being that it was so low level we went back to the office. Over the following days we kept in touch with helicopter pilots that were flying tours regularly in the area. Over a while we fell into a routine of going out once a week and documenting everything. And totally unbeknownst to us that vent, which was later named Kupaianaha, erupted for years. And it eventually destroyed Kalapana.

All's to say the potential that lies behind that last sentence in HVO's update is greater than it sounds. Not to say it will.. but hey..

By my reckoning, this event will be pau when the tilt, as seen in the first plot I posted in this series of posts, turns around, starts inflating again.