Puʻu ʻŌʻō
Pu`u `O`o Crater Movies
Pu`u `O`o Flank Vent Movies
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July 5, 2007 23:00:06 to July 6, 2007 09:00:06
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Volcanoes can be difficult to study up close and in person. Because it may be days, weeks, or even years between important events, it is not always possible to have observers on the ground. In addition, volcanoes are often inaccessible due to their remote location and/or harsh environmental conditions. When you throw an eruption into the mix, another level of complexity is added to what may be an already difficult and dangerous situation.
For these reasons, scientists at Hawaiian Volcano Observatory have, for years, built camera systems to act as surrogate eyes, and, with the rapid advances in digital camera technology, these eyes are seeing better and better. Many of you are probably already aware of the Pu`u `O`o webcam and the Mauna Loa webcam serving near-real-time pictures of these two active volcanoes. Time lapse camera systems supplement the webcams by providing an inexpensive alternative that can be rapidly and easily deployed. These camera systems have allowed Hawaiian Volcano Observatory scientists to document a variety of exciting volcanic processes that occur on active shield volcanoes. The following time lapse movies illustrate many of these processes.
| | Episode 57 West Vent Drainback (6.5 MB) The Father's Day intrusion, described elsewhere on this Website, was accompanied by the collapse of the floor of Pu`u `O`o crater as lava withdrew from beneath the cone. The crater floor dropped about 100 meters in the center of the crater near the former Drainhole vent. The crater began to refill with lava on July 2, primarily from a vent on the western part of the crater floor near the site of the former Beehive vent. The crater floor was quickly buried and the crater began to refill with lava. Early in the refilling process, the erupted lava partly drained back into the erupting west vent, then quickly emerged again. This movie highlights a large drainback followed by a smaller secondary drainback. |
| Episode 57 East Vent Effusion (8.1 MB) The Father's Day intrusion, described elsewhere on this Website, was accompanied by the collapse of the floor of Pu`u `O`o crater as lava withdrew from beneath the cone. The crater floor dropped about 100 meters in the center of the crater near the former Drainhole vent. The crater began to refill with lava on July 2. Initially, a vent on the western part of the crater floor was the main vent, but from July 6 through July 13, the refilling of Pu`u `O`o crater was dominated by the effusion of lava from a vent on the east side of the crater. This movie shows the effusion of lava from the eastern vent. By this time, the volume of lava erupting from this vent had already begun to decrease. Unfortunately, the time-lapse camera capturing these images was having problems, so more active period of effusion from the eastern vent earlier in the week was not captured. |
| Drainhole Gas Pistons - Daytime (4.1 MB) A very interesting phenomenon seen at Kilauea is "gas pistoning". It is caused by the accumulation of gas beneath a column of lava, such as in Pu`u `O`o's crater vents. As the accumulated gas rises, it pushes up the overlying lava (the "piston"). When the gas bubble reaches the surface, it bursts, sometimes as a forceful jet of fume and spatter. The lava then drains back into the vent. Gas pistons come in a range of sizes, dependent on the size of the gas bubble, and can occur as single events or as a repeating series of events. During late Spring of 2006, the Drainhole vent in Pu`u `O`o crater was hosting nearly continuously repeating gas pistons. This movie sequence from June 3, showing a series of three gas pistons, is a brief example of the gas pistoning that was occurring at that time. The vent opening seen here is about 8 meters across, and is inset within the greater Drainhole pit which is about 30 to 40 meters across. Look at this Volcano Watch article for more information about gas pistoning. |
| Drainhole Gas Pistons - Nighttime (1.0 MB) Here is an example of gas pistoning at night at Drainhole vent (see the gas pistoning description above) also showing a series of three gas pistons. The vent opening in the movie is about 8 meters across, and is inset within the greater Drainhole pit which is about 30 to 40 meters across. Look at this Volcano Watch article for more information about gas pistoning. |
| Drainhole Gas Pistons - Nighttime (842 KB) This is a third example of gas pistoning at Drainhole vent, also at night, but from a slightly later time period after the floor of the Drainhole vent had collapsed. The pit, as seen from this angle, is about 30 meters across. Again, this is a series of three gas pistons, and the vertical change of the top of the lava pond is about 15 meters. Look at this Volcano Watch article for more information about gas pistoning. |
| MLK Vent Lava Fountaining (9.8 MB) For the past several years, much of the volcanic activity at Pu`u `O`o has been located at vents on the southwestern flank of Pu`u `O`o cone. One of the most recent of these flank vents is the Martin Luther King (MLK) vent. On February 9, 2005, a apparent surge of lava to Pu`u `O`o resulted in an episode of spattering and fountaining from the MLK vent. The largest cone, before the event, was about 6-7 meters high. The fountain reached a height of about 10 meters. |
| MLK Daily Sequence (9.6 MB) A time lapse camera has been poised on the southern flank of Pu`u `O`o cone since early 2004. This location overlooks the Martin Luther King (MLK) vent and provides a distant view of the top of the Prince Kuhio Kalanianaole (PKK) tube system--the currently active tube system at Pu`u `O`o. This movie shows the long-term development of the MLK and PKK vents by stitching together one image per day from April 2004 to March 2005. Some days are missing due to bad visibility or broken cameras. Images were, in most cases, rotated and cropped to accomodate changes in camera position. One of the most interesting things this movie shows is the relatively rapid inflation and deflation of the lava surface around the MLK vent. |
| MLK Cone Collapse (1.2 MB) During Spring 2005, activity at the Martin Luther King (MLK) vent changed from a period of construction to one of destruction. This was highlighted by the collapse of the main MLK spatter cone located in the center of the image sequence. The collapse was probably related to a gas piston event (see gas piston description above). The drainback of lava beneath the spatter cone, following a lava extrusion event, likely removed support of the overlying rock. The cone then fell into the resultant cavity. This behavior continued after the demise of the spatter cone, but was manifested as pond overflows like that seen in the next movie. |
| MLK Vent Overflow (1.3 MB) After the collapse of the main spatter cone at the Martin Luther King (MLK) vent, the lava pond filling the new pit began to periodically overflow. These overflows, of which this movie is an example, were likely caused by gas pistoning as described above. Also look at this Volcano Watch article for more information about gas pistoning. |
| East Lae`apuki Shatter Ring (1.0 MB) The feature seen here is called a shatter ring. It is a circular rampart of broken rock that forms over a lava tube when lava pressure in the tube repeatedly exceeds the strength of the overlying rock. Repeated flexing of the lava-tube roof breaks the rock around the edges of the mobile area. This shatter ring was active from late September to mid-October 2006, and, in this sequence, was about 55 m long and and 2.5 m high. The center of the shatter ring, which is not visible here, was about a meter lower than the lava surface outside the shatter ring. Thus, the center of the shatter ring uplifted about 5 meters during this event. Lava emerging from the base of the shatter ring is evidence of the overpressurization of the lava tube. |
Ocean Entry Movies
| East Lae`apuki Lava Delta Collapse (8.5 MB) At 11:10 in the morning on November 28, 2005, the active lava delta at East Lae`apuki began to fall into the ocean. This was not a catastrophic collapse, with the entire 34-acre delta going at once, but instead occurred in a piece-meal fashion over a period of just less than 5 hours. The collapse removed the active East Lae`apuki delta, plus another 10 acres of the old sea cliff inland from the delta. The area of land removed was 830 meters long and 320 meters wide--this is more than half a mile long and just under a quarter mile wide! For additional information see the Press Release or this Volcano Watch article. Also look at this HVO webpage describing the growth and collapse of lava deltas. |
| East Lae`apuki Bubble Bursts (10.0 MB) The interaction of sea water and lava creates a volatile situation. When this happens inside the confined space of a lava tube, or a narrow, water-filled crack, the results can be impressive. In this movie, which was made from cropped images to give a close-up view, bursting lava bubbles put on quite a show for several hours. These were huge bubbles with some of the bigger bursts reaching in excess of 20 meters in height. At the location of the bubbles, a person would be about as tall as the numbers in the time lapse counter. Bubble bursts and other types of explosive activity at ocean entries is described on this HVO webpage. |
| East Lae`apuki Tube Breakout (1.2 MB) After sunset on June 24, lava burst from the East Lae`apuki lava tube about 50 meters inland from the sea cliff. Lava reached and began cascading over the sea cliff within a minute, and quickly spread across the active delta below. The cascade was mostly crusted over by late afternoon on June 25, but intermittent surges kept it alive until dawn on September 26 when the event appeared to have finally ended. The sea cliff at the cascade location was about 15-20 meters high. |
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| East Lae`apuki Tube Breakout (1.2 MB) Between the morning of September 20 and the evening of September 22, there were 10 separate breakouts from the East Lae`apuki tube about 50 meters inland from the sea cliff at the East Lae`apuki ocean entry. The breakout featured here was the most spectacular of the series with perhaps as many as twelve separate lava cascades over the sea cliff--depending on how you count them. The breakout started just after 4:00 PM when glare from the sun was at its worst. Thus, this movie sequence starts just before sunset when the view improves dramatically. |
What I always thought was weird about those Watchtower pamphlets was how most of the dudes look like Hercules from those 50's/60's movies.