Hawaii’s Kīlauea volcano erupting again
Posted December 23, 2024 9:45 am.
Hawaii’s Kīlauea volcano, considered one of the most active in the world, is erupting again in Volcanoes National Park on Big Island.
The United States Geological Survey’s (USGS) Hawaiian Volcano Observatory raised the volcano alert level from an advisory to a warning as elevated earthquake activity beneath the summit began at approximately 2 a.m. HST and a new eruption began about half an hour later Monday within the Kīlauea summit caldera.
The USGS says the opening phases of an eruption are usually dynamic and web cam images from the site show a line of fissures from which lava fountains are erupting and feeding lava flows at the base of the Halemaʻumaʻu crater within the caldera.
A video posted on X by the USGS shows the eruption from the west caldera wall.
As per the USGS, “Kīlauea Volcano is a shield volcano located on the eastern slope of Mauna Loa Volcano on the Island of Hawai‘i. The volcano is considered to be in the shield-building stage of Hawaiian volcanism.”
The volcano has erupted dozens of times over the past few decades and five eruptions have taken place since 2020. The last eruption took place in September in the volcano’s middle East Rift Zone
Over the past several years, eruptions at the Kīlauea summit have lasted anywhere from two weeks to more than a year.
Currently, the activity is confined to the summit caldera, occurring within a closed area of the national park.
Watch a livestream of the eruption below:
