Location: Hawaii Island, HI Map
Elevation: 1,277 m (4,190 ft)
Kilauea Volcano is
situated in the Hawaii Island in Hawaii, United States. Kilauea
Volcano is particularly famous for its geological activity that
ironically draws thousands of tourists annually. It reaches the
total height of 1,277 m (4,190 ft). The volcano is fairly
"young". It is only 300,000 to 600,000 years old. Local
Hawaiians believed that Kilauea is the body of the deity Pele,
goddess of volcanoes as well as wind, lighting and fire.
Kīlauea is a hyperactive shield volcano in Hawaii, and the most
active of the five volcanoes that make up the island of Hawaii.
It is also one of the most active volcanoes on Earth. Located
along the south coast of the island, the volcano, with an age of
300,000 to 600,000 years, emerged from the sea about 100,000
years ago. It is the second most recent volcano formed by the
hot spot of Hawaii and the current eruptive center of the
Hawaiian-Emperor seamount chain. As it lacks topographical
prominence and because its eruptive activity coincided
historically with that of Mauna Loa, Kilauea was erroneously
considered a satellite of its much larger neighbor.
Structurally, Kilauea has a summit with a large caldera that was
recently formed, and two active rupture zones extending 125 km
to the east and 35 km to the west respectively, forming an
active fault line, of unknown depth, which moves vertically with
an average of 2 to 20 mm per year.
The eruptive history
of Kilauea has been very long and active; its name means
"spitting" or "spreading a lot" in Hawaiian, in reference to its
frequent lava flows. The volcano's first lava flows date back to
the pre-submarine shield stage, and samples of its submerged
slopes were recovered by ROV. Other lava samples were recovered
through drill cores. 90% of the volcano is covered by igneous
rocks with an age of less than 1000 years; the oldest igneous
rocks exposed on the surface have an age of 2100 and 2800 years.
The first documented eruption of Kilauea occurred in 1823, and
since then the volcano has erupted repeatedly. Most of the
historical eruptions have occurred at the summit or in the area
of southwestern rupture of the volcano, and had a prolonged
and effusive character; however, the geological record shows
that explosive eruptions were very common at the time before
contact with Europeans, and if the explosive activity were
restarted, it would represent a much greater danger to the
population. The current eruption of Kilauea dates back to
January 3, 1983, and is by far the longest historical eruption
of the volcano and one of the longest eruptions in the world; As
of January 2011, the eruption produced 3.5 km³ of lava and
resurfaced 123.2 km² of land.
The high state of activity
of the Kilauea has a strong impact on the ecology of its slopes,
where the growth of plants is often interrupted by the fall of
tephra and the drift of volcanic sulfur dioxide, producing acid
rain, especially in a arid zone south of the southwest rupture
zone, known as the Ka'ū desert. However, wildlife thrives in
undisturbed places on the volcano and is highly endemic as a
result of the isolation of the Kilauea - and of the island of
Hawai - from the closest continental mass.
Historically,
the Hawaiian people considered the island's five volcanoes as
sacred, and in Hawaiian mythology the Halemaumau crater of
Kilauea was seen as the body and home of Pele, the goddess
associated with fire, lightning, wind and volcanoes William
Ellis, a missionary from England, spent two weeks traveling
along the volcano and gave the first modern account of Kilauea;
Since its founding by Thomas Jaggar in 1912, the Hawaii
Volcanological Observatory, which sits on the edge of the
Kilauea caldera, served as the main scientific research entity
of the volcano and the island in general. In 1916, US President
Woodrow Wilson signed a bill that established the Hawaii
Volcanoes National Park, and since then the park has become a
World Heritage Site and a major tourist destination that
attracts about 2.6 million. of people annually.
Kīlauea is part of a chain of volcanoes, the Hawaiian-Emperor Range,
which stretches from the Northwest Pacific to Hawaii. Over millions of
years, as the ocean floor moved over a localized hot spot in the Earth's
mantle, it created this long chain of islands, of which only a few
islands can be seen on the surface today. The northernmost is Midway
Island.
In addition to Kīlauea, the Big Island has two other
active volcanoes, Mauna Loa and Hualālai, and two presumably inactive
volcanoes, Mauna Kea and Kohala.
Kīlauea is currently one of the most active volcanoes on earth. As
with most volcanoes that overlie hotspots, the eruptions are effusive:
lava wells up from the Earth's interior and flows out in continuous lava
flows. Although the vast majority of eruptions are not explosive in
character, there are exceptions. For example, from May 11 to May 27,
1924, a series of powerful explosions occurred in Halemaʻumaʻu Crater,
ejecting rocks weighing several tons several kilometers out of the
crater. This was caused by large amounts of inflowing groundwater, which
suddenly evaporated when it came into contact with magma. The overlying
rock was blown away by the steam pressure.
However, the vast
majority of eruptions are more peaceful because the lava from Hawaiian
volcanoes has a very low viscosity. In the low-viscosity lava, trapped
gases can escape more easily before an eruption and cannot build up high
pressure, unlike, for example, the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980.
The viscosity of lava is influenced by several factors: its temperature,
its chemical composition and its gas content.
The most recent
eruption of Kīlauea began on December 20, 2020. Before that there was a
more than thirty-year phase of activity from 1983 to 2018. Most of this
did not take place in the main crater, but mainly in the Puʻu-ʻŌʻō
crater about 15 km away. From there, the lava streams sometimes flowed
into the Pacific, where the lava, which is over 1100 degrees Celsius, is
abruptly cooled by the seawater. The lava does not flow the entire route
above ground, but often in lava tubes.
In the three to four
kilometer caldera of the Kīlauea lies the shaft crater of Halemaʻumaʻu,
in whose soil from 2008 to 2018 an active lava lake of about 200 meters
was sunk between 60 and 150 meters deep.
From May 3, 2018 (local
time), in the eastern rift valley, 40 km east of the Kīlauea caldera, in
the Puna district in a populated forest area, the so-called Leilani
Estates and later also Lanipuna Gardens, crevices from which lava welled
formed. These fissure eruptions were accompanied by earthquakes, the
strongest of which reached magnitude 6.9 - the strongest tremor in
Hawaii since 1975 (7.1) when two people died. On May 3rd, 1700 people
were officially asked to leave the area. Another 10,000 residents of the
Puna district were advised to leave as a precaution. A state of
emergency was also declared. On May 11, 2018, Hawaii Volcanoes National
Park was closed. In connection with the earthquakes and magma
encroachment in the fault zone, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory
published some facts according to which a feared catastrophic rupture
along the Hilina Trench would be extremely unlikely. After several weeks
of volcanic activity, partly as a result of explosions, a large ash
plume formed over Halemaʻumaʻu on May 15 and 17, 2018. After hotter
magma from the Puʻu ʻŌʻō reached the fissures, lava flows formed that
flowed southeast and reached the ocean on May 19, 2018 after crossing
coastal Hawaiʻi State Route 137 between Pohoiki and Opihikao. After the
main activity had shifted to fissure no. 8, on June 2, 2018, another
lava flow, initially flowing northeast, reached Hawaiʻi State Route 137
again at the "Four Corners" intersection in the town of Kapoho, which
had been destroyed by a lava flow in 1960 and then relocated and first
cut them off and then almost completely buried them until the lava flow
reached the ocean on June 4th. The lava masses also filled Green Lake,
the largest freshwater lake on the island, and caused the water to
evaporate. Seismic activity increased in the main crater during the
eruption, leading to nearly daily collapses of the crater floor and rims
of Halema'uma'u. The lava flow from fissure #8 corresponded to this.
Activity decreased in early August: the last subsidence of the main
crater floor was recorded on August 2, 2018, seismic activity there
decreased on August 4, and the fissure 8 lava channel nearby was
reported empty on August 6. After 90 days of inactivity, the 1983
eruption was declared over on December 5, 2018.
A lake at the
bottom of Halemaʻumaʻu Crater, filled with water as of July 2019,
evaporated at the start of the December 20, 2020 to May 2021 eruption,
forming a new lava lake. The eruption from September 29 to December 9,
2021 also created another lava lake.
On January 5, 2023, an
eruption confined to Halemaʻumaʻu Crater began.
Kilauea is believed to be the home of Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of
volcanoes, in Hawaiian mythology and oral legend.
Some lava
formations on the Kilauea volcano are named after her:
"Tears of
Pele" are small drops of lava that quickly cool and freeze on the fly.
"Pele's hair" is the result of lava spray being drawn into fibers in the
wind.
"Pele's algae" is the result of the cooling of the walls of
lava bubbles that form when lava flows into the ocean.