Hawaii's Kilauea volcano eruption

  • Thread starter davenn
  • Start date
  • Tags
    Volcano
  • Featured
In summary, volcanic activity has slowed down in the Leilani Estates area with eight fissures open, but officials say it is not over yet. Kilauea volcano has been erupting since 1983 and has a current eruption rate of 250,000-650,000 cubic yards per day. The total amount of lava erupted since the current eruption began is over 1,400 million cubic meters.
  • #106
OmCheeto said:
Is this the portion that's supposed to break off and fall into the ocean?
No, that portion is named California. :wink::wink::wink:
 
  • Like
Likes phinds and OmCheeto
Earth sciences news on Phys.org
  • #107
This seems kind of unreal.

 
  • Like
Likes davenn
  • #108
OmCheeto said:
This seems kind of unreal.

farrrrrrrrrrrrrr out ! :wideeyed::))

if it wasn't for the normal looking speed of the 2 people walking back down off the lava field to the vehicle,
I would have said that the video had been sped up. In the dozens of videos I have watched over the last 6
weeks, NONE of them have shown the laver river flowing at that speed.

If it is real, that is mindblowing !
I am not sure if you could fake a video like that by having the top half of the frame running at a different frame rate than the bottom half ?
Video editing isn't one of my fortes

Dave
 
  • Like
Likes OmCheeto
  • #109
davenn said:
farrrrrrrrrrrrrr out ! :wideeyed::))

if it wasn't for the normal looking speed of the 2 people walking back down off the lava field to the vehicle,
I would have said that the video had been sped up. In the dozens of videos I have watched over the last 6
weeks, NONE of them have shown the laver river flowing at that speed.

If it is real, that is mindblowing !
I am not sure if you could fake a video like that by having the top half of the frame running at a different frame rate than the bottom half ?
Video editing isn't one of my fortes

Dave
Per the USGS on Twitter:

USGS Volcanoes
‏Verified account @USGSVolcanoes
7 hours ago
In Kīlauea Volcano’s #LERZ lava from fissure 8 builds a spatter cone over 170 ft tall. Lava exiting fissure 8 travels ~15 mph, slowing to ~2 mph near the ocean entry at Kapoho. https://bit.ly/2tcK3v2

In a Facebook video posted by the USGS, the lava seems to be just as fast.



Though now I'm really confused.
From a distance, why does lava shooting out of the ground into the air look like the film has been slowed down, while lava running horizontally makes it seem the film has been sped up?
 
  • Like
Likes davenn and DrClaude
  • #110
OmCheeto said:
From a distance, why does lava shooting out of the ground into the air look like the film has been slowed down, while lava running horizontally makes it seem the film has been sped up?

cuz it takes much more energy to push skywards against gravity then to flow horizontally like a river :wink:

That horizontal speed in that latest video from you easily compares to that other video :smile:
 
  • Like
Likes OmCheeto
  • #111
davenn said:
cuz it takes much more energy to push skywards against gravity then to flow horizontally like a river :wink:

That horizontal speed in that latest video from you easily compares to that other video :smile:
And in spite of what my eyes see, the maths seems to work out.
I digitized the path of a projectile yesterday, snagged a number from the time vs height chart I posted a few days ago(1 sec = 16 feet), did some maths:

2018.06.17.lava.flow.speed.calculation.png


and came up with a horizontal speed of ≈20 mph, which was close enough for me.

I also did another calculation, based on a somewhat humorous question on Twitter; "Oh my god! The world is deflating! Where does all this lava go??" (paraphrased, as I'm too lazy to look it up)

It seems that the current to date lava volumetric output [0.2 km3] is about 1 part in 5 trillion of the Earth's volume [1 trillion km3]. This is equivalent to a human losing 7 cells.
(Which I suppose a biologist could rightly yell at me for, as they range in volume by about 5 orders of magnitude [ref]: sperm cell ≈30 µm3 --- oocyte ≈4,000,000 µm3, but I don't really care.)
 

Attachments

  • 2018.06.17.lava.flow.speed.calculation.png
    2018.06.17.lava.flow.speed.calculation.png
    54 KB · Views: 906
  • Like
Likes jedishrfu, Tom.G, davenn and 1 other person
  • #112
While waiting for Kilauea to do something, you might want to watch this:



Hot spots!

ps. Nick Zentner is a most awesome speaker, IMHO.
 
  • Like
Likes BillTre, 256bits, davenn and 1 other person
  • #113
OmCheeto said:
While waiting for Kilauea to do something, you might want to watch this:

Hot spots!

ps. Nick Zentner is a most awesome speaker, IMHO.
Excellent lecture... thanks for posting :smile:
 
  • #114
This is kind of surreal:

 
  • Like
Likes davenn, BillTre, Richard Crane and 1 other person
  • #115
This is also kind of surreal:

 
  • Like
Likes nsaspook and Borg
  • #116
 
  • Like
Likes davenn, OmCheeto and BillTre
  • #117
OmCheeto said:
This is also kind of surreal:



Can someone explain what we are looking at? I can't tell what is ground, sea or sky/clouds/steam. I saw some streaks, I was thinking they were stars at night, or reflections, or lava under water, or ? But it is interesting.
 
  • #118
NTL2009 said:
Can someone explain what we are looking at? I can't tell what is ground, sea or sky/clouds/steam. I saw some streaks, I was thinking they were stars at night, or reflections, or lava under water, or ? But it is interesting.
We are looking at the glow of the river of lava at night from fissure 8 to the ocean entry.
The camera is located at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea (19.824083° -155.469627°)
I believe the city lights are those of Hilo.
The distance from the camera to fissure 8 is about 70 km.
[ref]

view.from.mauna.kea.of.fissure.8.flow.png
 

Attachments

  • view.from.mauna.kea.of.fissure.8.flow.png
    view.from.mauna.kea.of.fissure.8.flow.png
    100.6 KB · Views: 675
  • #119
OmCheeto said:
This is also kind of surreal:


Well... Poop!

It appears the Facebook user has removed this video from public view.
To see it, you can go to http://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/en/gallery/cloudcams/video.php?cam=cloudcam3 and click on the image labeled Jul01-2018 at the bottom of the screen.
The videos are MP4 format, so I don't think they are directly link-able to PF. Though you can right click on them and save them to your PC, which is nice. (Just in case these guys decide to also remove them :oldgrumpy:)
 
  • Like
Likes davenn and BillTre
  • #120
OmCheeto said:
Well... Poop!

It appears the Facebook user has removed this video from public view.
To see it, you can go to http://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/en/gallery/cloudcams/video.php?cam=cloudcam3 and click on the image labeled Jul01-2018 at the bottom of the screen.
The videos are MP4 format, so I don't think they are directly link-able to PF. Though you can right click on them and save them to your PC, which is nice. (Just in case these guys decide to also remove them :oldgrumpy:)
Wow, that is pretty weird!
 
  • #121
OmCheeto said:
Well... Poop!

BillTre said:
Wow, that is pretty weird!
"Intellectual property," perhaps? Bit of a stretch, putting it on the web and then pulling it, but stranger things have happened.
 
  • #122
nsaspook said:
WOWOW
 
  • #123
HAWAIIAN VOLCANO OBSERVATORY STATUS REPORT
U.S. Geological Survey
Thursday, August 16, 2018, 1:24 PM HST (Thursday, August 16, 2018, 23:24 UTC)KILAUEA VOLCANO (VNUM #332010)
19°25'16" N 155°17'13" W, Summit Elevation 4091 ft (1247 m)
Current Volcano Alert Level: WARNING
Current Aviation Color Code: ORANGE

Kīlauea summit and lower East Rift Zone

The lull in activity at Kīlauea Volcano continues. No summit collapse events have occurred since August 2, and, with the exception of a small, crusted-over pond of lava deep inside the fissure 8 cone and a few scattered ocean entries, lava stopped flowing in the lower East Rift Zone (LERZ) on August 6. Sulfur dioxide emission rates at both the summit and LERZ are drastically reduced; the combined rate is lower than at any time since late 2007.

Earthquake and deformation data show no net accumulation, withdrawal, or significant movement of subsurface magma or pressurization as would be expected if the system was building toward a resumption of activity.

It is too soon to tell if this change represents a temporary lull or the end of the LERZ eruption and/or summit collapse activity. In 1955, similar pauses of 5 and 16 days occurred during an 88-day-long LERZ eruption. During the Mauna Ulu eruption (1969-1974), a 3.5 month pause occurred in late 1971.
 
  • Like
Likes davenn, Steelwolf, jedishrfu and 1 other person
  • #124
Here is a NY Times article that reviews the timeline of this eruption.
It has some nice pictures.
Something I found interesting was that the approximate volume of lava coming out was about what they predicted the volume of magma in the volcano that was affected from the drop in magma level (if I understand it correctly).
This seems to mean that the erupting lava was squirting out a side leak of the main volcano's plumbing and no new magma was required.
 
  • Like
Likes Steelwolf, OmCheeto, davenn and 1 other person
  • #125
BillTre said:
This seems to mean that the erupting lava was squirting out a side leak of the main volcano's plumbing and no new magma was required.

yup, the existing full magma chamber emptied out. This was very evident with the collapses of the caldera
 
  • Like
Likes Steelwolf
  • #126
As an update, here is a recent helicopter video showing the terran and where some roads have been made over the lava.
 
  • Like
Likes davenn, Borg, OmCheeto and 1 other person
  • #127
I would imagine that the song of Jimmy Buffet's, Volcano would apply""Now I don't know
I don't know
I don't know where I'm a going to go
When the volcano blow..."But they are making inroads on it!
 
Back
Top