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Summary
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| Current Update | Update Archive | |
6 September and 30 August 2001
Aerial views of lava flow and reopened Kalapana road
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30 August. Curving tongue of silvery lava heads for the road. The threatening flow is just right of center, its big bend a little left of the forest. |
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6 September. Road crews today placed crushed rock across the new flow, which stopped flowing 2-3 days before. The road was reopened on 8 September. |
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6 September. View of the end of the road, showing the new stretch across the flow. Visitors walk from a parking area along the road to the end, where they take a trail, barely visible in lower right of large image, to the viewpoint for the East Kupapa`u ocean entry. |
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13 September 2001
East Kupapa`u entry--lava flow on beach
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| Aerial views of the bench at the East Kupapa`u ocean entry showing a lava flow sneaking eastward along the base of the black sand beach. Left: View from east. Note how the flow, slowly moving toward the camera, has cut off a section of the sandy beach from the water. Right: View from southwest showing the new flow, which is just above the heavy steam coming from the main entry point. In background is the new access road. Trail to view point (arc on top of cliff just beyond bench) begins at wide end of access road. | |
20 September 2001
Cracks on East Kupapa`u bench show instability
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East part of bench, showing the lava flow active on September 13 but now being covered by sand. Medium and large views show cracks on bench left of beach. Visitor viewing area visible in upper right. |
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Looking east along the cracked part of the bench. Note the several cracks, all paralleling the old sea cliff. Beach sand is washing across and hiding the end of one crack, but you can bet that the crack extends across the bench under the sand. |
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Another view of the cracks on the East Kupapa`u bench. The cracks form as the bench breaks up when its weak, rubbly underpinnings give way. The cracks are sure signs that the bench is unstable and could collapse catastrophically at any time. They indicate one of the reasons that people must stay off the bench. |
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30 September 2001
By the Dawn's Early Light--the new ocean entry
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| The new ocean entry started on the night of September 28-29 near Kamoamoa (see caption for map at bottom of page for location of new entry). These views were taken just after dawn on September 30. Left: View looking east, into morning sky, at 0559. Note the bench that is actively building out from the base of the 10-m-high sea cliff. Note also the section of cliff behind the bench readying itself for a tumble. Right: View looking down onto the bench at 0607. Note the many different breakouts, the one near the bottom edge falling directly into the water. Steam rises from heated sea spray. | |
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0613. Looking west showing small cascade in background and larger one in foreground that began only 2 minutes earlier. Note the grotto behind yesterday's lava drapery, lighted by the glow of the lava. |
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0613. Same view as above, but a close-up showing more clearly the two cones of lava drapery formed from cooling of lava falling from the cliff yesterday. The grotto behind the drapery cones is roofed by the new lava flow and is extremely treacherous to walk on. |
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0617. Top of new cascade shown in the two images above. Lava is flowing from beneath crust in upper left and plunging over the cliff on right side of photo. |
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0646. View looking west across new bench. Two main lava cascades are active, the one nearest the camera sending two flows down the bench to the coastline. The sun is lighting the top of the farthest lava falls. |
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Map of flows from Pu`u `O`o: September 2001
Map shows lava flows erupted during the 1983-present activity of Pu`u `O`o and Kupaianaha (see large map). The flows active from December 17, 2000 through September 30, 2001 are shown in red; the west flow is indicated by the cross-hatched red flow that enters the ocean at Kamoamoa.
Most of the recent flows are fed from breakout points at 1920-1700 feet, above Pulama pali in the northern part of the large red area. Lava re-entered the sea near Kamokuna (just east of Kamoamoa) on January 21, 2001, but soon stopped when activity shifted from the western to the eastern branch of the flow. Since then, activity has been divided between the eastern and western branches. Breakouts from the eastern tube system have destroyed hundreds of meters of the Royal Gardens access road.
Lava has been entering the ocean and building a large bench at East Kupapa`u since April 25. A tiny trickle of lava fed through the western tube system dripped into the water just east of Kamoamoa on May 31 but stopped within a day. Since then, all lava entering the sea had gone through the East Kupapa`u entry until September 28-29, when the new entry at Kamoamoa started.
Contact: hvowebmaster@usgs.gov
Updated: 1 October 2001 (srb)