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Hawaii’s Kilauea Volcano still inflating – lava lake close to overflowing
April 2015 – HAWAII – A
lava lake on Hawaii’s Big Island is mere feet from overflowing. On
Tuesday morning, the lava’s surface briefly reached the lake’s rim, the
highest it’s been since the current eruption began in 2008. It has since
returned to about 10 feet below the rim. “Magma is rising up into the
lava lake from a magma chamber a mile or so beneath the summit of
Kilauea volcano,” research geologist Matthew Patrick told The Huffington
Post. According to Patrick, an overflow is a definite possibility
because Kilauea has been consistently inflating for the past week,
meaning that magma keeps flowing into the lake from an underground
chamber below. In the event of an overflow, the lava would stay within
Halemaumau Crater, the larger crater in the floor of which the lava lake
sits, so it would pose no safety threat. But visitors to Volcanoes
National Park would get quite a display.
Typically, the lava surface is 100 to
200 feet below the rim of the crater lake and therefore can’t be seen
from the public viewing area around the volcano. Since the lava has
risen, Patrick said, “its incandescent cracks and often vigorous
spattering” can easily be seen from the overlook. An overflow would
“likely provide an impressive scene for park visitors.” While this is a
notable development in the current eruption, it’s not particularly
unusual in the history of Kilauea, Patrick said. “In the 1800s and early
1900s, there was nearly continuous lava lake activity for about 100
years, and oftentimes that lava was spilling out of Halemaumau Crater,”
he explained. As exciting as an overflow sounds, it is also possible
Kilauea will abruptly deflate, Patrick said, bringing the lava’s surface
back down to typical levels. –Huffington Post
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