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An undated aerial image of Mount St. Helens, Washington.
We've talked a lot about volcanoes in other parts of the world, but now we have two UF volcanoes making some news (although neither because they're having a large eruption):
Hawai'i: The
lava lake at the Halema'uma'u Crater in Kilauea has reached new heights - in fact, the lava lake had gotten high enough (~77 meters below the crater floor) in the pit crater that there was some thoughts that it might spill out onto
the floor of the crater. However, that fate is unclear now as the
pit crater itself is collapsing into
the lava lake, with large chunks of the rim falling in on Monday. These chunks, some as large as 120 meters x 5 meters, fell into the lake and produced small plumes of ash and gases along with very obvious popping sounds heard as far as half a mile away. You can
hear some of the noises and watch some quicktime movies of the activity at the Halema'uma'u Crater over on the Hawaii Volcano Observatory website.
Collapses in the pit crater in 2009 blocked off the lava lake from view, but quickly the lava was able to retake the crater. Seismicity related to the upper east rift zone of lava
seemed to peak late last week, which might suggest that the influx of new basaltic magma might be waning. Be sure to check out the
great time lapse videos (this one from Pu'u O'o) from Eruptions readers along with all the Kilauea the
webcams as well.
UPDATE: Speaking of Pu'u O'o time lapse video, here is
a new one from the USGS as well.
