Last spring/summer you may recall that on the big island of Hawaii, the Kilauea volcano was extremely active. It began as a significant magnitude 6.9 earthquake felt nearly the entire island over, and evolved to a cycle of hundreds of quakes daily before tapering off with the lava flows at Leilani Estates.

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park was closed due to the fact that the ensuing quake cycles were centered around the Kilauea caldera itself. The cycle would start with small, hardly noticeable temblors and within 24-30 or so hours culminate in a 5+ magnitude jolt.

I was at the park as security to enforce the closure from mid June to early July. I've decided to share a lot of the pics I took while there- honestly, I don't have any idea why I didn't before now.

To start things off with a bang, here is a video I shot from an overlook where I was lucky enough to witness a 5.3 magnitude shaker and it's effect on the crater itself. There was a light breeze that day, so the movement of the vegetation was from the quake itself. The Halemaumau crater within the caldera is about 3000 feet across and close to 300 feet deep.

https://vimeo.com/331793917

Here is a quick vid one of our safety officers took of the flow from fissure 8. The beeping is from his personal SO2 monitor. Slow beeping indicates below 5ppm. Fast beeping means above 5ppm. If not wearing a mask, we were told that you hear the slow beep from your monitor, walk out of the area; if fast accompanied by flashing lights, run.

https://vimeo.com/332253336

And here is a link to the Hawaii Civil Defense Flikr page. It is loaded with high quality pics and vids.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/141970887@N04/

Here is a page containing links to the USGS web cams on the big island- remember, they are 6 hours earlier.

https://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/cams/



I will be adding many pics from my time there- enjoy.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: gearhounds,

NICE !

Was there around 2003.

Probably one of the coolest things I have ever done was walk through the active lava field there. Amazing.

Literally lava at your feet.

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I’ll be there next week!

On the first day, everyone gets fit tested for a mask to protect from SO2 (sulfur dioxide) and gas monitors were mandatory.

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First look at the crater


Kilauea summit marker- 4091’ elevation


An offering to Pele by a local to cease the earthquakes

The view of the lava fountain from about 30 miles away


And at night from the same spot


One evening after work, another officer and I tried to see how close we could get to the active vents; we hit the perimeter at about 5 miles. The whole sky was lit up orange. The "fire" is the active lava fountain.

Cool photos. Thanks.

Basically, the entire area at the summit is mostly concentrated ash, pumice, lava, etc that has been compressed over time so it lack the stability of true igneous rock, or even the basaltic rock found throughout the island. It is highly susceptible to damage from earthquakes and less stabile to begin with. A lot of cracks were opened up in the general vicinity.

Trail near the Jagger Museum


Damaged overlook wall


Cracks like this run all over the place on the rim of the caldera where people normally were permitted until the event.






6’ wide, 30’ deep hole that opened up under hwy 11, the main road across the Island


The Jaggar museum and USGS research facility and observatory are closed permanently- at some point in the future, they are expected to collapse into the caldera.
The observatory

The concrete subfloor of the Jaggar museum is crisscrossed with fractures from the quakes, and the lava rock facade is falling apart. Luckily, the exhibits and everything of value was removed before the building became too unsafe to enter





USGS cameras are set up in the observatory itself; when the building goes, it may be recorded as it happens.
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thanks. terrific pics and a super vid too.

that park is like being on another planet. very cool watching the vid. one of my favorite national parks.

be careful.

bob

We were there about 10-years ago. So it looks like the Caldera edge has increased/encroached on the museum area? I don't remember the Caldera being THAT close.

quote:

Originally posted by urbanwarrior238:
We were there about 10-years ago. So it looks like the Caldera edge has increased/encroached on the museum area? I don't remember the Caldera being THAT close.

From months of hundreds of quakes daily, the inner crater grew exponentially and the caldera expanded as well. It’s hard to tell from the vid but during that quake, the noise you heard was thousands upon thousands of tons of material breaking loose and falling down. The same thing happened with each and every quake over about magnitude 4, so a couple of times a day at least. The caldera is slowly undercutting both Jaggar and the research center. Both structures are doomed at this point. The floor of Jaggar is so fractured that the building is going out of square. Back in June, the door frames were already so deformed that the doors wouldn’t go back into them.

I took this one two years ago from the museum area. I'm guessing that hole is a little bigger now?

Look how small it was 50 years ago...

Cool, thanks for posting. I really want to get down there to see the changes since the last eruption.

Mrs.BurtonRW and I were there for the first time right before it happened (Fall 2017). We couldn’t believe how fortunate our timing was that we got to see it all just in time.

Remember that Lava Tours boat that took the flaming rock through it’s roof? Yeah - we took a tour on that boat, too. (A damned good one, in fact!)

Thanks for sharing!

-Rob

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
I took this one two years ago from the museum area. I'm guessing that hole is a little bigger now?

Yes- you can’t even frame the entire crater in one pic anymore. But to give you an idea, check out the far right; the road that used circle the crater has partially fallen into it. Picture is a little grainy but you can see how much real estate is missing. It was taken right after a large quake- debris is raining down all sides, hence the dust.


The next 2 pics show the extreme left side of the crater; the difference in time is approximately 2.5 weeks. You can see just how much material has slumped and it is an enormous amount.
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Nice photos. I was up there a few years ago.

There were some areas mostly unaffected by the quakes- Chain of Craters road led down onto the coastal lava plains and gave some great views of the vast Pacific Ocean. The little ribbon at the bottom is the same road from the top.


You can walk right to the edge and see some amazing surf. It boggles the mind that there is as much ocean between the big island to The conus as there is land from California to the east coast.
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Saw this porker running along the road- they’re destructive and invasive.

Here is a quick vid one of our safety officers took of the flow from fissure 8. The beeping is from his personal SO2 monitor. Slow beeping indicates below 5ppm. Fast beeping means above 5ppm. If not wearing a mask, we were told that you hear the slow beep from your monitor, walk out of the area; if fast accompanied by flashing lights, run.

https://vimeo.com/332253336

And here is a link to the Hawaii Civil Defense Flikr page. It is loaded with high quality pics and vids.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/141970887@N04/

Here is a page containing links to the USGS web cams on the big island- remember, they are 6 hours earlier.

https://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/cams/

These links will also be added to the first post.