Kilauea

There are some nice videos of the current eruption of Kilauea (after some tedious commercials via the link at the top of the article) with lava spattering and lava reaching the sea on the 4th of July. Not much description of the eruption in the article, but it sounds like it is just the Hawai'ian volcano doing what it does best (and possible ramping up for more).

Not much in the way of science to add here, but photographers at Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park are still busy around the clock documenting the summit vent activity at Kilauea that started in March. Most of the activity is steam escaping from the vent, but at night, the vent glows red, proving just how close to the surface the magma is right now. Occasionally, the volcano throws out some volcanic clasts, probably in phreatomagmatic (water/magma interaction) explosions. The USGS Hawaii Volcano Observatory has a nice series of photos of the current activity and research as well, mostly…

The western Pacific basin is pockmarked with active and extinct volcanoes related to the subduction of the Pacific plate along almost all of its western boundary. An Australian National University research group recently discovered a pair of undersea volcanoes that would put any good mining geologist into a fit of joy. These volcanoes are spewing volcanic gases underwater that are very rich in metals like copper, lead, zinc and gold. All of these metals like to go into solution in acidic fluids like volcanic gases, and when these volcanic fluids meet the cold (and decidedly less acidic)…

The latest eruption at Kilauea has increased the amount of vog on the big island of Hawai'i. Vog is more or less the same as the anthropogenic "smog" produced by car/industrial exhaust, but produced by volcanic gases (carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen sulfide amongst others). It definitely doesn't make for good air quality, especially with the current lack of strong tradewinds in Hawai'i right now.

For those of you who have missed it, Halemaumau Crater at Kilauea (Hawai'i, USA) have been experiencing new eruptions - some of them explosive - for the last couple months. These are the first eruptions at Halemaumau since the 1980s and the first explosive eruptions at Kilauea since the 1920s. Much of the area around the crater in Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park are closed due to the volcanic gases and the potential for more explosive eruptions to throw material out of the crater. These explosive eruptions are likely caused by the interaction between the magma below the surface intersecting…