The vent at Halemaumau switched back to full ash production, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior’s United States Geological Survey, at 4:40 pm Hawaii Standard Time, Friday, March 28. So the steam and gas phase of the eruption was only about 36 hours long. One assumes it could go back and forth in […]

The scientist in charge at the Hawaii Volcano Observatory is calling the recent ash eruption in the Halemaumau crater at Kilauea “unprecedented”. Geophysicist Jim Kauahikaua (PhD from UH Manoa, ‘83) held a press briefing Wednesday morning, March 26 at the Jagger Museum in the town of Volcano, which is near Volcanoes park but not too […]

On Sunday evening, March 23, 2008, molten lava started spewing from the vent at Halemaumau. It is the first magma to erupt from the huge crater since 1982. String-like lava as fine as spun glass, droplets, and spatter fragments as large as four inches in diameter were ejected as far as the rim of the […]

All the vents at Kilauea together are now producing between 8,8000,000 and 10,000,000 pounds of sulfur dioxide daily. Thats up to ten million pounds a day. 330,000 pounds per day is considered ‘normal’. So we are seeing concentrations of over thirty times normal. At 1 part per million in the air, sulfur dioxide can […]

Um, the volcano on this island is having a bit too much fun.
Sulphur dioxide emissions have some days been as high at 4,000,000 lbs. That’s four million pounds per day. Makes for pretty sunsets, but I wondered if I was in Los Angeles for a moment. No… even with vog, Kona is not Los Angeles. […]