- Smoke billows from Grindavik crater as rescue underway for fear of volcano eruption The Independent
- Iceland volcano update: Earthquake ‘swarm’ strikes Grindavik area as residents still evacuated Yahoo News
- Iceland Volcano Eruption Update: Magma Dike ‘Wider’ Than Scientists Thought Newsweek
- John Wheeler: The process that formed Iceland now threatens Icelanders INFORUM
- Iceland grapples with volcanic eruption risks after massive crack opens in the ground — here’s what it means for the rest of the world Yahoo News
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Tag Archives: eruption
Iceland prepares to shield geothermal plant from risk of volcanic eruption – Reuters
- Iceland prepares to shield geothermal plant from risk of volcanic eruption Reuters
- As Iceland braces for a potential volcanic eruption, what is likely to happen and what are the risks? CNN
- Fissures open up on the streets of an Iceland fishing town near a volcano that may soon erupt euronews
- Hard Numbers: Iceland’s eruption alert, Scott’s campaign ends, Myanmar junta’s challenge, Japan’s evacuation drill, Aussie’s Tuvalu deal, Djibouti’s first satellite GZERO Media
- ‘Tremendous uncertainty’: Iceland braces for eruption Reuters
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Iceland warns of ‘significant likelihood’ of volcanic eruption as earthquakes shake southwest – ABC News
- Iceland warns of ‘significant likelihood’ of volcanic eruption as earthquakes shake southwest ABC News
- Iceland: 1,400 earthquakes strike in 24 hours, amid possible volcanic eruption | LiveNOW from FOX LiveNOW from FOX
- As Iceland braces for a potential volcanic eruption, what is likely to happen and what are the risks? CNN
- Iceland Declares State of Emergency After 800 Earthquakes Rattle Nation in 14 Hours | News18 | N18V CNN-News18
- Iceland Braces for Possible Volcanic Eruption After Quakes Rattle Grindavik The Wall Street Journal
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Tourists received no safety warnings before New Zealand volcano eruption killed 22, prosecutor says – New York Post
- Tourists received no safety warnings before New Zealand volcano eruption killed 22, prosecutor says New York Post
- Pilot says he escaped serious injury by jumping into the ocean when a New Zealand volcano erupted Yahoo News
- Volcano survivor details horrific journey to mainland in court evidence | ABC News ABC News (Australia)
- Devastating video shows cruise ship tourists fleeing for their lives from erupting volcano: ‘Run, run’ New York Post
- Footage played to court showing moment of deadly White Island volcano eruption – Latest From ITV News ITV News
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Massive, months-long volcanic eruption roils Jupiter’s moon Io
A massive volcanic eruption has been spotted emerging from Jupiter’s moon Io. The eruption was observed in the Fall of 2022 using the Io Input/Output observatory (IoIO) by Planetary Science Institute (PSI) senior scientist Jeff Morgenthaler.
One of Jupiter’s largest moons, Io is considered to be the solar system’s most volcanic body with its extreme conditions and yearly outbursts of volcanism caused by the tremendous gravitational influence of its parent planet.
The gravity of Jupiter, the solar system’s most massive planet, and that of two of the other large Jovian moons create powerful tidal forces within Io. This stretches and squeezes Io, the innermost of the four large Jovian moons, giving rise to violent volcanic activity.
Related: Io: A guide to Jupiter’s volcanic moon
The PSI-operated IoIO is located near Benson, Arizona, and has been observing monitor volcanic activity on Io since 2017. Using a coronagraphic technique that dims the light coming from Jupiter the instrument is able to image faint gases near the gas giant.
This allowed Morgenthaler to spot the brightening of both sodium in a cloud or “nebula” around Jupiter which began between July and September 2022 and ended just last month.
Ionized sulfur which surrounds Jupiter in a donut-like structure and is referred to as the Io plasma torus also brightened during the Fall of 2022. This was less pronounced however than the brightening of the Io plasma torus seen during previous outbursts.
“This could be telling us something about the composition of the volcanic activity that produced the outburst or it could be telling us that the torus is more efficient at ridding itself of material when more material is thrown into it,” Morgenthaler said in a statement (opens in new tab).
The IoIO observations could be followed up by NASA’s Juno spacecraft which has been orbiting the gas giant since 2016. Juno is set for a close flyby of Io in December 2023 and its instruments are sensitive to plasma around Jupiter.
This plasma can be traced back to Io’s volcanic activity, meaning that Juno could tell astronomers if the volcanic outburst of Fall 2022 had a different chemical makeup than other Io eruptions.
Before Juno can get close enough for such an investigation, however, Morgenthaler is hoping more versions of IoIO could be up and running across the globe.
“One of the exciting things about these observations is that they can be reproduced by almost any small college or ambitious amateur astronomer. Almost all of the parts used to build IoIO are available at a high-end camera shop or telescope store,” Morgenthaler said. “It would be great to see another IoIO come online before Juno gets to Jupiter next December.”
These additional IoIO copies in different global locations could help astronomers continue monitoring the Jovian moon from Earth during gaps enforced by unfavorable weather conditions. More IoIO units could also provide more time to cover Jupiter’s highly dynamic Io plasma torus and sodium nebula.
In addition to studies of Jupiter and the elements surrounding it, IoIO is observing the sodium “tail” that follows Mercury and planets outside the solar system, exoplanets, as they transit the face of their stars.
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Tonga volcano eruption continues to astonish
Scientists have described a massive “magma hammer” they say slammed the underside of the Tonga volcano which erupted so spectacularly in January.
An analysis of seismic waves has revealed four individual events that are interpreted to be thrusts of molten rock beneath the underwater mountain.
Occurring within a five-minute period, each of these blows is calculated to have had a force of a billion tonnes.
It’s a further revelation about the behaviour of Hunga-Tonga Hunga-Ha’apai.
The seamount produced the biggest atmospheric explosion ever recorded by modern instrumentation – far bigger even than any nuclear bomb test conducted after WWII.
It displaced some 10 cubic km of rock, ash and sediment, much of it exiting through the volcano’s mouth, or caldera, to shoot straight up into the sky, like a “shotgun blast” as one geologist called it.
Scientists have gathered here in Chicago at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting to compare the latest results of their investigations into what happened.
Dr Yingcai Zheng, from the University of Houston, detailed his team’s analysis of the Magnitude 5.8 seismic waves generated just over 10 minutes into the climactic eruption on 15 January.
These signals were picked up at more than 400 monitoring stations around the globe.
Dr Zheng attributes them to a pulse of magma moving up from below the mountain and hitting the base of the caldera.
“I think it could be like a new batch of magma suddenly just reaching into the magma chamber and over-pressurising the chamber,” he said. “The pulse of the magma is travelling up at high speed and it’s like a train hitting the base of the wall. It hammered four times within 300 seconds,” he told BBC News.
Ash from Hunga-Tonga was measured by weather satellites to have travelled 57km above the Earth’s surface, the highest ever recorded volcanic plume. But new data presented at the AGU meeting indicated the disturbance went higher still – all the way to space.
Sensors on US space agency and US Air Force satellites that measure far-ultraviolet radiation from the Sun noticed a strong absorption feature in their data correlated to an altitude above 100km – the so-called Karman Line and the recognised boundary to space.
“If I see an absorber, if I see that hole – that means that something got up above the boundary to space and sucked up those photons that would normally get sent to my sensor,” explained Dr Larry Paxton, from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab. “That spot was as big as Montana, or Germany or Japan.”
Dr Paxton can tell from the light signature that the absorber was water vapour, and he can also calculate the mass of water sent into space: somewhere between 20,000 to 200,000 tonnes.
That a submarine volcano should throw so much water into the sky during an eruption is not a surprise. The height to which that water travelled is, however.
This water also clearly played a role in creating the conditions necessary to generate the “greatest concentration of lightning ever detected”, according to Chris Vagasky.
The meteorologist from Vaisala Inc works with a network that detects the radio frequency emissions associated with lightning events. It enables him to locate and count discharges anywhere on the globe.
He told the AGU meeting that Hunga-Tonga’s eruption plume produced 400,000 lightning events on 15 January.
“We were getting lightning rates of up to 5,000 to 5,200 events per minute. That’s an order of magnitude higher than you would see in super-cell thunderstorms – some of the strongest thunderstorms that exist on this planet,” he said.
“And because these rates were so high, we were saturating our sensors. The 400,000 number – that’s actually the floor of the value. We’re working to figure out just how much we missed.”
One remarkable consequence of all this lightning is that it produced a gamma-ray flash detected by a Nasa satellite that normally looks out into the Universe for such high-energy emissions. These would come from far-off black holes or exploding stars, but this was the first time the Fermi spacecraft had caught a flash coming from a volcano on Earth.
Again, it’s testament to the extreme nature of the Hunga-Tonga eruption.
Tonga volcano eruption blasted millions of tons of water into space
Satellite observations show that the Jan. 15 eruption propelled water vapor 93 miles off the surface of the planet, well past the generally accepted boundary of space at 100 kilometers, or about 62 miles, according to one of the studies being presented in Chicago at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union.
The eruption sent as much as 4 million metric tons of water vapor into space, according to Larry Paxton, a scientist at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Md.
“This is really a unique event,” Paxton said. “In the 20 years we’ve been making observations, we’ve seen nothing like this.”
The event grabbed the attention of scientists who use satellites to monitor “space weather.” Scientists track space weather because of the risk of a catastrophic solar storm that would send a plume of charged particles at the Earth, interacting with the planet’s magnetic field in a way that could damage satellites in orbit or even affect the power grid on the surface.
Just before the volcano’s eruption (and purely by coincidence), a modest-sized solar storm had sent a burst of charged particles toward Earth. But the volcano had an even more powerful effect on the ionosphere, according to Claire Gasque, a doctoral candidate in space physics at the University of California at Berkeley.
Among the shocking effects: A current known as the equatorial electrojet, which normally runs west to east in the ionosphere, reversed direction, she said.
“This was a moderate [solar] storm versus a very strong volcano. So that’s not to say a volcano would always win,” Gasque said.
The data can help scientists improve their understanding of space weather, she said in an email: “This eruption is a good event to help us understand what a sudden impulsive blast of energy in the lower atmosphere can do to our space environment, which will hopefully improve future space weather prediction capabilities.”
Volcanologists have been busy in recent weeks because of the eruption of Mauna Loa, on Hawaii’s Big Island, and experts will also discuss those observations this week at the AGU meeting. Mauna Loa is a relatively predictable volcano in the grand scheme of things, and it has been closely monitored for decades.
By contrast, submarine volcanoes such as Hunga Tonga are often in very remote locations, and their potential for big eruptions remains largely unclear. In January, the record-breaking Tonga blast sent tsunamis across the Pacific Ocean and created a sonic boom that could be heard in Alaska. Experts estimate that the amount of energy released by the eruption was as much as 60 megatons, roughly equal to the most powerful hydrogen bomb ever detonated.
“One of the most remarkable things about this volcano was how explosive it was,” Sharon Walker, an oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory, said at the news conference Monday.
Hot lava making contact with seawater fuels that explosiveness, she said. Moreover, the caldera of the submerged volcano was relatively close to the surface compared with many such peaks, and that meant less water pressure from above to suppress the violence of the eruption, she said.
“There are places in the South Pacific that could really use more study,” Jessica Ball, a volcanologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, said in a recent interview. “There are thousands of undersea volcanoes. Not all of those will be active. Sometimes we don’t know they are active until they start erupting.”
Massive eruption from icy volcanic comet detected in solar system
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A bizarre, volcanic comet has violently erupted, spewing out more than 1 million tons of gas, ice and the “potential building blocks of life” into the solar system.
The volatile comet, known as 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann (29P), is around 37 miles (60 kilometers) wide and takes around 14.9 years to orbit the sun. 29P is believed to be the most volcanically active comet in the solar system. It is one of around 100 comets, known as “centaurs,” that have been pushed from the Kuiper Belt — a ring of icy comets that lurk beyond Neptune — into a closer orbit around the sun between those of Jupiter and Neptune, according to NASA (opens in new tab).
On Nov. 22, an amateur astronomer named Patrick Wiggins noticed that 29P had drastically increased in brightness, according to Spaceweather.com (opens in new tab). Subsequent observations made by other astronomers revealed that this spike in luminosity was the result of a massive volcanic eruption — the second largest seen on 29P in the last 12 years, according to the British Astronomical Association (opens in new tab) (BAA). The largest eruption during this time was a huge outburst in September 2021.
An eruption of this size is “pretty rare,” Cai Stoddard-Jones (opens in new tab), a doctoral candidate at Cardiff University in the U.K. who took a follow-up image of 29P’s eruption, told Live Scence. “It’s [also] difficult to say why this one is so big.”.
The explosion was followed by two smaller outbursts on Nov. 27 and Nov. 29, according to BAA.
Related: Watch the biggest-ever comet outburst spray dust across the cosmos
Unlike volcanoes on Earth, which eject scalding-hot magma and ash from the mantle, 29P spits out extremely cold gases and ice from its core. This unusual type of volcanic activity is known as cryovolcanism, or “cold volcanism.”
Cryovolcanic bodies, which include a handful of other comets and moons in the solar system such as Saturn’s Enceladus, Jupiter’s Europa and Neptune’s Triton, have a surface crust surrounding a mainly solid icy core, Richard Miles (opens in new tab), a BAA astronomer who has studied 29P, told Live Science. Over time, radiation from the sun can cause the comets’ icy interiors to sublime from solid to gas, which causes a buildup of pressure beneath the crust. When radiation from the sun also weakens the crust, that pressure causes the outer shell to crack, and cryomagma shoots out into space.
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The cryomagma from comets like 29P is mainly composed of carbon monoxide and nitrogen gas, as well as some icy solids and liquid hydrocarbons, which “may have provided some of the raw materials from which life originated on Earth,” NASA representatives wrote.
The ejecta from the most recent eruption of 29P stretched up to 34,800 miles (56,000 km) away from the comet and is traveling at speeds of up to 805 mph (1,295 km/h), according to BAA. The plume “probably comprised more than one million tons of ejecta,” Miles added.
Photographs of the erupting comet also show that the plume formed an irregular Pac-Man-like shape, which suggests the eruption originated from a single point or region on the comet’s surface, according to Spaceweather.com.
These observations back up previous research that suggests 29P’s eruptions are linked to its rotation. Miles and Stoddard-Jones believe that the comet’s slower rotation causes solar radiation to absorb more unevenly on the comet, triggering the eruptions. So far eruptions from the comet tend to match up with its 57-day rotation period, the researchers said.
Related: Volcanic eruptions on the moon happened much more recently than we thought
Researchers also suspect that 29P’s most explosive eruptions follow a cycle based on its orbit around the sun. A number of large eruptions were detected between 2008 and 2010, and now two massive explosions have occurred within the last two years, Miles said. It is therefore likely that there will be least one more major eruption from 29P by the end of 2023, he added.
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However, it is less clear how this longer eruption cycle is occurring, because unlike most other comets, which get closer to the sun during a specific period of their orbits, 29P has a largely circular orbit, meaning it never gets much closer to the sun than its average distance, Stoddard-Jones said.
29P has largely been ignored by the astronomical community since its discovery in 1927, but as new evidence emerges about its unusual volcanic activity it is starting to be taken more seriously, Miles said. “Clearly there is something new to be discovered in studying 29P.”
The James Webb Space Telescope is scheduled to take a closer look at 29P early next year, he added.
Mauna Loa eruption 2022 – live: Hawaii volcano eruption shifts from summit to rift as shelters open and flights delayed
Mauna Loa: World’s largest active volcano erupts in Hawaii
Hawaii’s Mauna Loa, the largest active volcano on Earth, has erupted for the first time in nearly four decades.
According to the National Weather Service (NWS), the eruption on the state’s Big Island began at approximately 11.30pm local time on Sunday in Mokuaweoweo, the summit caldera of the volcano.
Footage from US Geological Survey (USGS) webcams at the summit captured fountains of lava spewing from a long fissure and spreading across the caldera floor.
The USGS said the lava flows were initially contained in the summit area and do not pose a threat to communities downslope, but there are fears that could change.
At 7.43am ET on Monday, USGS said that “there is currently no indication of any migration of the eruption into a rift zone”.
The eruption has also already triggered dozens of earthquakes of more than 2.5 magnitudes on the Richter scale, one of them clocking in at 4.2.
The local NWS branch issued an ashfall warning which cautioned that “winds may carry volcanic gas and possibly fine ash and Pele’s hair downwind”.
Why didn’t Mauna Loa explode like Mount St Helens?
Fifty-seven people died when Washington state’s Mount St Helens erupted in 1980 and blasted more than 1,300ft (400m) off the top of the mountain. Steam, rocks and volcanic gas burst upward and outward. A plume of volcanic ash rose over 80,000ft (24,384m) and rained down as far as 250 miles (400km) away.
Hawaii volcanoes like Mauna Loa tend not to have explosion eruptions like this.
That’s because their magma is hotter, drier and more fluid, said Hannah Dietterich, a research geophysicist at the US Geological Survey’s Alaska Volcano Observatory.
The magma in Mount St Helens tends to be stickier and traps more gas, making it much more likely to explode when it rises.
The gas in the magma of Hawaii’s volcanoes tends to escape, and so lava flows down the side of their mountains when they erupt.
Hawaii’s volcanoes are called shield volcanoes because successive lava flows over hundreds of thousands of years build broad mountains that resemble the shape of a warrior’s shield.
Shield volcanos are also found in California and Idaho as well as Iceland and the Galapagos Islands. Alaska’s Wrangell-St Elias National Park has eight shield volcanoes including Mount Wrangell.
Volcanoes like Mount St. Helens are called composite or stratovolcanoes. Their steep, conical slopes are built by the eruption of viscous lava flows and rock, ash and gas. Japan’s Mount Fuji is another example of a composite volcano.
Oliver O’Connell29 November 2022 06:50
Watch: World’s largest active volcano erupts in Hawaii for first time in almost 40 years
Mauna Loa, the largest active volcano on the planet, has erupted for the first time in almost 40 years.
Footage shows the sky glowing red as the volcano erupted on Hawaii‘s Big Island.
Dozens of earthquakes, some of more than 2.5 on the richter scale, were triggered by the eruption.
The last eruption at Mauna Loa occurred in 1984.
Mauno Loa: World’s largest active volcano erupts for first time in almost 40 years
Mauna Loa, the largest active volcano on the planet, has erupted for the first time in almost 40 years. Footage shows the sky glowing red as the volcano erupted on Hawaii’s Big Island. The National Weather Service (NWS) said that the eruption began at 11:30pm local time on Sunday, 27 November. Dozens of earthquakes, some of more than 2.5 on the richter scale, were triggered by the eruption. The last eruption at Mauna Loa occurred in 1984. Click here to sign up for our newsletters.
Oliver O’Connell29 November 2022 04:50
What happens next?
Each eruption since 1843 started at Mauna Loa’s summit. Half the time, the volcano later also began erupting from vents at lower elevations. The other half of the time it only erupted in the summit caldera.
Scientists can’t tell far in advance when and where Mauna Loa will open new vents and erupt.
Vents generally form along the volcano’s rift zone. That’s where the mountain is splitting apart, the rock is cracked and relatively weak and it’s easier for magma to emerge.
An eruption from vents on the southwest rift zone could hit residential communities, coffee farms or coastal villages on the west side of the island. Lava could reach homes in just hours or days.
The west side’s most populous town would be protected from any Mauna Loa eruption by the presence of another active volcano. The broad flanks of that volcano, Hualalai, sit between Mauna Loa’s southwest rift zone and Kailua-Kona and would block any lava heading toward the coastal community.
An eruption from the northeast rift zone could send lava toward the county seat of Hilo or other towns in East Hawaii. It could take lava weeks or months to reach populated areas on this side of the mountain.
Scott Rowland, a geologist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, said there’s no pattern when it comes to where an eruption will occur.
“Just because the last one was on the northeast rift zone does not mean the next one will be down the southwest rift zone,” he said.
Oliver O’Connell29 November 2022 03:50
Why doesn’t Mauna Loa erupt like is neighbour Kilauea
Kilauea is well-known for a 2018 eruption that destroyed 700 homes and sent rivers of lava spreading across farms and into the ocean. The eruption of Mauna Loa is different.
Mauna Loa’s eruptions differ from Kilauea’s in part because it is taller. It’s greater height gives it steeper slopes, which allow lava to rush down its hillsides faster than Kilauea’s.
It’s enormous size may allow it to store more magma, leading to larger lava flows when an eruption occurs.
Frank Trusdell, research geologist at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, which is part of the U.S. Geological Survey, said data indicates that Mauna Loa has a much larger magma reservoir than Kilauea, which may allow it to hold more lava and rest longer between eruptions than Kilauea.
Oliver O’Connell29 November 2022 02:50
Seven weeks ago: National park closes access to Mauna Loa due to increased seismic activity
In early October, national park authorities closed Mauna Loa’s summit off as a precautionary measure “due to elevated seismic activity”.
Shweta Sharma reported for The Independent at the time.
Oliver O’Connell29 November 2022 01:50
Where is Mauna Loa?
Mauna Loa is one of five volcanoes that together make up the Big Island of Hawaii, which is the southernmost island in the Hawaiian archipelago. It’s not the tallest (that title goes to Mauna Kea) but it’s the largest and makes up about half of the island’s land mass.
It sits immediately north of Kilauea volcano, which is currently erupting from its summit crater. Kilauea is well-known for a 2018 eruption that destroyed 700 homes and sent rivers of lava spreading across farms and into the ocean.
Mauna Loa last erupted 38 years ago. In written history, dating to 1843, it’s erupted 33 times.
The Big Island is mostly rural and is home to cattle ranches, coffee farms and beach resorts. It’s about 200 miles (320 kilometers) south of Hawaii’s most populous island, Oahu, where the state capital Honolulu and beach resort Waikiki are both located.
Oliver O’Connell29 November 2022 00:50
Southwest Airlines cancels Hilo flights in wake of eruption
Southwest Airlines has cancelled at least 10 flights to and from Hilo airport on the Big Island as the eruption of Mauna Loa continues.
The company said in a statement: “The volcanic ash advisory has Southwest adjusting our operation today within Hawaii and we’ll continue reaching to update customers holding reservations on any flights affected by either delays or a cancellation. We have suspended operations in Hilo today, affecting a total 10 interisland departures just on the route between Honolulu and Hilo, and would make further adjustments as necessary.”
A waiver is being offered for customers scheduled to fly to, from or within Hawaii to change their reservation with no changes in fares. The waiver is applicable to bookings Monday and Tuesday.
Aviation officials continue to closely monitor the situation.
Oliver O’Connell28 November 2022 23:50
One month ago: Hawaii’s Big Island gets warning as huge volcano rumbles
Authorities warned Hawaii residents to prepare one month ago…
Hawaii officials are warning residents of the Big Island that the world’s largest active volcano, Mauna Loa, is sending signals that it may erupt.
Although an eruption isn’t imminent, scientists are on alert because of a recent spike in earthquakes at the volcano’s summit. Experts say it would take just a few hours for lava to reach homes closest to the volcano, which last erupted in 1984.
Oliver O’Connell28 November 2022 22:50
Mauna Loa: What you need to know
Mauna Loa is one of five volcanoes that together make up the Big Island of Hawaii, which is the southernmost island in the Hawaiian archipelago.
Mauna Loa, rising 13,679 feet (4,169 meters) above sea level, is the much larger neighbor of Kilauea, which erupted in a residential neighborhood and destroyed 700 homes in 2018. Some of its slopes are much steeper than Kilauea’s, so lava can flow much faster when it erupts.
During a 1950 eruption, the mountain’s lava traveled 15 miles (24 kilometers) to the ocean in fewer than three hours.
Here’s what’s happening at Mauna Loa right now.
Oliver O’Connell28 November 2022 22:20
Eruption shifts to rift zone
The US Geological Survey said that the eruption had migrated to a rift zone — a place where the mountain rock is cracked and relatively weak — making it easier for magma to emerge.
An eruption from the zone could send lava toward the county seat of Hilo or other towns in East Hawaii but it could take the lava weeks or months to reach populated areas.
“We don’t want to try and second-guess the volcano,” Ken Hon, the scientist-in-charge at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said. “We have to let it actually show us what it’s going to do and then we inform people of what is happening ASAP.”
Hawaii County Civil Defense announced that it had opened shelters because it had reports of people evacuating from along the coast on their own initiative.
The average Mauna Loa eruption is not typically prolonged, lasting a couple of weeks, Mr Hon said.
“Typically, Mauna Loa eruptions start off with the heaviest volume first,” Mr Hon said. “After a few days, it starts to calm down a little bit.”
Oliver O’Connell28 November 2022 21:50
Hawaii’s Mauna Loa, the world’s largest active volcano, erupting for first time in almost 40 years
Hawaii’s Mauna Loa, the world’s largest active volcano, started erupting Sunday night and lava was flowing from its summit by Monday morning, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The lava wasn’t expected to threaten populated areas, officials said.
“Lava flows are not threatening any downslope communities and all indications are that the eruption will remain in the Northeast Rift Zone,” the USGS said in a statement.
At a Monday afternoon press conference, Hawaii Volcano Observatory Scientist in Charge Ken Hon said officials don’t expect the lava flow to reach the Southeast Rift Zone, where there are more inhabitants.
“As far as we know, in any historic precedence that there has never been an eruption of Mauna Loa that activated both rift zones at the same time or during the same eruption,” Han said. “So we presume at this point that all of the future activity is gonna be on the Northeast Rift Zone and not on the Southeast Rift Zone. So those residents in that area do not have to worry about lava flows.”
U.S. Geological Survey via AP
Mauna Loa has erupted 33 times since 1843, according to the USGS. It last erupted in 1984, when lava spilled down its slopes and came within 4.5 miles of Hilo.
Hon said the lava flow is very similar to the lava flow from the 1984 eruption and could potentially threaten populated areas around Hilo
“We’re looking for somewhere around a week before we expect lava to get anywhere near that direction,” he said. “We’re hoping that it will parallel the 1984 eruption in becoming more viscous as times goes on and hitting flatter slopes that slow it down, and this actually prevented the lava from getting into Hilo.”
He added that “only a couple of eruptions” have made it into the outskirts and reached Hilo.
“We’re hoping that while this lava flow will be a big, spectacular event, it occupies a fairly small proportion of the island, and hopefully it will have relatively minor effects on the residents and visitors of the island,” Hon said.
Still, the agency warned all residents on Hawaii Island who are “at risk from Mauna Loa lava flows” to “review preparedness and refer to Hawai’i County Civil Defense information for further guidance.”
The early stages of an eruption can be dynamic, the agency warned, adding that “lava flows can change rapidly.”
Residents were also warned volcanic gas, ash and thin glass fibers known as Pele’s hair could be carried downwind.
The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said it was “in close consultation with emergency management partners and will be monitoring the volcano closely to provide further updates on activity.”
Major General Ken Hara, adjutant general for the State of Hawaii, Department of Defense, said Monday afternoon that the Hawaiin Emergency Management Agency had activated its emergency operation center at 1 a.m. Hara added that the Hawaii National Guard was on standby, although nobody had been activated as of 1:15 p.m. local time.
A satellite captured images of Sunday’s eruption from space. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration posted images of the heat signature and release of sulfur dioxide from the volcano.
In response to the eruption, Southwest Airlines canceled 10 interisland flights between Hilo, the island’s biggest city, and Honolulu, the carrier told CBS News. Hawaiian Airlines said it was still operating on the island in Hilo and Kona while monitoring the eruption, and Untied Airlines reported no delays or cancellations Monday morning.
Mauna Loa’s Hawaiian name means “long mountain,” which is fitting as the huge mountain extends roughly 74 miles from its edge along Hawaii Island’s southern coast, to the rim of its summit caldera, or crater, where the eruption began on Sunday evening.
USGS