Vulcão Kilauea, Hawaii: erupção continua

Kīlauea Volcano continues to erupt at its summit and within its East Rift Zone. In the East Rift Zone, the tip of the June 27th lava flow remained stalled; however, active surface breakouts up slope of the front continued. A narrow flow lobe about 2.5 km (1.6 mi) upslope of Pahoa Marketplace continued to advance toward the north-northeast. Yesterday morning, Civil Defense reported that this lobe has advanced 46 m (50 yards) since day before yesterday. Minor changes in ground tilt were recorded over the past two days at the summit and at PuʻuʻŌʻō.

This shows a comparison of a normal photograph with a thermal image of the flow front. The white box shows the rough extent of the thermal image. White and yellow pixels in the thermal image show areas of active breakouts. Although the leading tip of the flow has stalled, the thermal image shows that active breakouts are present a short distance upslope of the stalled tip.

June 27th Lava Flow Observations:

This morning, Civil Defense confirmed that the flow tip remains stalled approximately 800 m (0.5 miles or 880 yards) from the intersection of Highway 130 and Pāhoa Village Road. However, a 2-fingered narrow flow lobe about 2.5 km (1.6 mi) upslope of Pahoa Marketplace continued to advance "advanced approximately 50 yards since yesterday" toward the north-northeast. This lobe has entered a drainage that leads to the steepest-descent path that crosses Highway 130 about 1 km (0.6 mi) south of the Makuʻu Farmer's Market, but the flow is still 3.5 km (2.2 mi) uplsope from Highway 130 and moving slowly. Other areas of surface lava were also active 0.9 - 3.5 km (0.5 - 2 mi) upslope of the Pāhoa Marketplace. Breakouts further upslope, near the True/Mid-Pacific geothermal well pad, are also active. The VLF line on the upper June 27th lava tube showed a small decrease from the previous measurement on December 30; the average cross-sectional area of the lava stream was around 1.7 square meters (2 square yards).

Close view of incandescence in spatter cone within a pit at the northeast edge of PuʻuʻŌʻō’s crater (the smaller pit visible to the right side in the adjacent photograph). Note small flows that cover the floor of this small crater.

PuʻuʻŌʻō Observations:

About 0.6 microradians of deflation were recorded by a tiltmeter on the north flank of PuʻuʻŌʻō cone since early day before yesterday afternoon. All other monitoring data indicated no significant changes at PuʻuʻŌʻō. The most recent measurement of sulfur dioxide emissions from all East Rift Zone vents was about 250 tonnes per day on December 19, 2014.
Summit Observations:

A minor amount of inflationary ground tilt (~0.2 microradians/day) was recorded at the summit over the past three days. The summit lava lake has shown minor fluctuations associated with changes in spattering behavior, which are also manifested as variations in tremor amplitudes and gas release. The lava level was measured at around 48 m (160 ft) below the lip of the Overlook crater Tuesday morning. Small amounts of particulate material were carried aloft by the plume. The average emission rate of sulfur dioxide was around 5,400 tonnes/day for the week ending on January 6.

Localização geográfica do vulcão Kilauea

Fonte: USGS