Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Two surface lava flows appear on pali – East & west of Royal Gardens

Lava from the "TEB" (Thanksgiving Eve breakout lava flow November 21st, 2007) vent flows through the upper tube system and feeds surface flows above the pali.

We have been watching the leading edge of an advancing surface flow of lava high up the mountain above the Kalapana terminus of highway 130 for the past three days. Visually, this flow appears to be above and to the west edge of the old Royal Gardens subdivision; miles away and seen only as lava glow off clouds and lately forest can be seen flaring up into flames. Last night while looking at this flow we still could not see the lava itself, but almost.

As I was leaving the end of 130 at 10:00 PM last night I glanced back up the mountain and was totally surprised to see molten lava appearing on the crest of the pali - far east of the other tree-burning flow to the west.
I will let the text on these photos detail these two flows:(Click on any image for a larger size)







The deformation graph shown below shows a continued gradual deflation of magma pressures below Kilauea. The pressures appear to still be strong enough to keep lava pouring out the eruption vents near Pu`u O`o:

Strong glow was visible again from the Jaggar Museum Overlook overnight (Hawaii Volcanoes National Park). This strong glow was recorded by webcam from locations on the floor of Pu`u `O`o crater overnight. USGS reports the broiling molten lava surface within the crater pit vent rose to its highest level in at least a year.



3.8 quake near Pahala Monday, January 18, 2010 at 1:01:35 PM (HST)

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