Update 8 Nov 2024 As commented below, NASA has produced a new image and image slider showing the ash cloud from the eruption:
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/153549/mount-lewotobi-laki-laki-spews-ash
The lava flow running east is the one produced in January-March. The blacker ash covers around 20km>sup>2 in this image. That suggests a volume of 0.01 to 0.001 km3: no more than a VEI 2.
The convent that was destroyed was located around 4km northwest from Lewotobi, so in the general direction of the ash but not towards the densest part (which was more to the west). It would have been outside the exclusion zone.The other photos of damage appear to be from the same village. Those photos suggest that the ash in that village wasn’t that thick.
Note the whiter ash close to the crater, also in the same direction. There is also some new light coulored debris on the upper parts of the lava flow.
My guess: this was an explosion which either removed an evolved lava dome or a part of the cone, and exposed the new magma below. The damage was limited, but severe in this village. It wasn’t a pyroclastic flow, at least not this far out. There is not much evidence for ballistic rocks, which would have required a far larger explosion and affected a much larger area. Instead, the explosion may have caused a rocky debris flow in the direction of this village. The rocks that demolished the houses rolled down the mountain. This is still speculation, though.
And now back to the original post:
Flores is a treasure box. It is one of the Lesser Sunda islands of Indonesia, an island arcs stretching for over 1000 kilometers east of Java. The name ‘Flores’ is Portuguese in origin. It refers to flowers, and specifically the red-flowered flame trees with dot the landscape. Flores lies at the heart of Wallacea, the region east of the Wallace line where the Eurasian ecology ends and an older one remains with echoes from Gondwana. The islands of Wallacea are those which were neither associated with continental Sundaland on one hand or New Guinea/Australia on the other.
The ancient sea crossing at the Wallace line between Bali and Lombok was no match for people. They came in various cohorts. The first such group is, or rather was, a now extinct variation of humanity, homo floresienses, diminutive people (some 120cm tall) who lived here until another a fresh migration came from Africa, 70,000 years ago. They are now thought to have been a subspecies of homo erectus, which had arrived on Flores perhaps by 1 million years ago. After competition came, it appears that they did not last long.
Flores is one of four islands where Komodo dragons are still found. Climate change is likely to make Flores non-viable for the species, but there are some still living in a few areas of forests in west and north Flores. (Surprising for a grassland species, but they live in trees when young, to avoid predation by older relatives.) They became a bit of a hot potato because the local government first wanted to close the national Komodo park, and when that caused an outcry, wanted to raise the entrance fee from 10 to 500 dollars. If Komodo dragons are a bit too much for you, in a fear factor for life or wallet, their closest relatives are the lace monitors that roam the more isolated beaches of Sydney.
There are other famous sights here, from the traditional village houses to the spider rice fields. No, they don’t grow spiders, but the fields are arranged in circular patterns resembling spider webs – of a size that might interest a Komodo dragon. Although tourism is beginning to grow, it is still far removed from the crowds that visit Bali. If you want to get away from the main tourist resort at Labuan Bajo, expect few comforts, no internet (volcano influencers – be warned) and the need for a full-time guide/driver.
Dinner menu on Flores (source: globerovers.com)
Volcanic arc
There are volcanoes here as well, most famously the coloured lakes of Kelimutu. The main attention-seeking volcanoes of Indonesia are elsewhere, but Flores does play its part.
There is a reason why Indonesia’s volcanoes lose interest this far east. The mover and shaker of the volcanoes is subduction of the Indo-Australian oceanic crust underneath Indonesia. This occurs at the Sunda (or Java) trench. But this subduction trench runs out south of Flores, where it meets the continental plateau shelf attached to Australia. There is still a trough that runs just south of Timor towards New Guinea, and which seems to separate Timor from the Australian continental shelf. However, whether this is now the edge of Australia is disputed. Before Australia arrived, the subduction trench ran somewhere in the region, but Timor and Savu appear to have been part of Australia’s continental shelf, not Indonesia. The Timor trough may be a fault within the Australian plate. The origin of this fault could still be the old Sunda trench, which was overridden by Australia’s continental crust and may have broken it. Behind the trench, the continental shelf was uplifted as it hit the ridge, and this became Timor, 8 million years ago. The rocks of Timor came from the south, and crossed the Tethys ocean as the vanguard of Australia.
The original subduction trench is lost, and may now be as much as 50-100 km south of the Timor trench, deep underneath the Australian continental shelf. The first battle of Asia and Australia was fought, and was won by the south.
Of course before Australia arrived, there was oceanic crust here and it did subduct, even if that subduction is no longer active. The past takes a long time to disappear. Below this part of Indonesia sits the last part of the oceanic floor that subducted, on the way down but not dead yet.
Flores is the thin, long island just north of the Savu Sea. On the north side is the Flores Sea. And here lies another fault system, the Flores thrust, a 800-km long system which runs from Lombok to east of Flores. This fault system is very poorly studied, in spite of being able to cause significant earthquakes. There was a damaging sequence of four large earthquakes (M6.2 to M6.9) just north of Lombok between late July and mid August of 2018, which caused major damage and over 500 fatalities, and which occurred on this fault. Much of the damage is still not repaired, especially in the region of Mount Rinjani, close to the fault line. A M7.8 earthquake occurred on the Flores thrust fault north of Flores in 1992, causing a tsunami with over 2000 fatalities.
The Sunda subduction fault is capable of much worse, of megathrusts, and it has overshadowed the Flores fault. One wonders whether anywhere else in the world a fault capable of M7.8 would get so little attention. There are so many geohazards in Indonesia: the country doesn’t have the resources to worry about them all.
(If you like to see all the fault hazards in the area, it is below. Or you may just want to look away now.)
The Flores fault is caused by pressure from Australia. It is a south-dipping fault, and is quite young, at only around 2 million years.
An interesting sideline is that the Flores fault runs close to (thought not through) two significant volcanoes: Rinjani (as shown by the 2018 earthquakes) and Tambora. These are the two largest eruptions of the past 1000 years! This is in spite of this fault itself not being volcanogenic. It may be providing a pathway for magma from the deep, wet subduction zone to come up. Or, as also has been suggested, these volcanoes are places where heat comes up with the magma (obviously) and this weakens the crust allowing the fault to take this path.
Flores volcanoes
This may not be the best known place for volcanoes, but there are still a lot here. Infallible wikipedia lists: Gunung Ranakah, Inielka, Ebulobo, Lya, Kelimutu, Egon, Lewotobi, Ilwerung, Siring, Lereboleng, Iliboleng, and Lewotolo. Those are the ones with known eruptions: there are four more for which no eruption is known. The tallest volcano is Inerie, at 2200 meters. Different from other Indonesian islands, the volcanoes occur near the southern coast. Activity may have moved north to south over time. The Flores thrust, taking up part of the motion of the Australian plate, allows the region to move a bit more north, so that the volanoes have to migrate south! This is speculative though.
The main activity is at the centre and in the east of the island: volcanoes in the western part tend to be weak to dead. This has been attributed to the Flores thrust cutting of their magma supply.
Because of the overriding of the Australian continental shelf, there may be a continental wedge stuck underneath Flores. This might be another possible cause of the location of the active volcanoes, as Australia is approaching in part from the east. The slab may help keep mantle material at a melting depth.
Lewotobi
Lewotobi is one of those volcanoes with some continental crust below them. Earthquake activity (tectonic, not volcanic) goes down to 50 kilometer depth before petering out. The Benioff melting zone which of course will be a seismic gap occurs at 110-200 km depth. The region between 50 and 100 kilometers is also seismically quiet. Whether this mantle wedge contributes melt is not known, but it does provide a pathway for magma to travel up and may also act as magma storage.
There are actually two stratovolcanoes here, only 4 kilometers apart. The younger and smaller one (1600 meters) is Lewotobi Laki-laki and the older larger (1700 meters) and more rugged looking one is Lewotobi Perempuan. Laki laki is frequently active; Perempuan has erupted twice in the 20th century. I have been told that these volcanoes are not twinned but paired: one is named ‘male’ and the other ‘female’ and together they are considered husband and wife. They erupt andesite. They are little studied and the geology and prehistory seem not to be well known.
The 2024 eruption
The GVP reports provide a good summary of events. The current activity started on 17 December 2023 when seismicity when up and warnings were issued. A week later on 23 December, there was a brief explosion from fissures close to the summit. It intensified during January, with minor pyroclastic flows on January 14 and lava flows reaching several kilometers. Sentinel images indicate the narrow lava flow was well on the way to reach the sea. February saw a reduction in intensity but it didn’t stop fully until March. Minor explosions restarted late April, becoming a daily occurence by late May. Early June the eruption restarted more fully, now called ‘Strombolian’. Ashfall became problematic after mid June, affecting villages more than 10 km away and causing nearby airports to close because of ash on the runways. And so it continued, with plumes reaching 1 km height. Minor lahars were reported late August. The eruption still came from the same vent, northwest of the summit. During this time, the exclusion zone fluctuated in size, between 3km and 6 km from the summit. Nothing changed until the end of October, with the eruption continuing as it had before. The main change from the early months was that there were no further reports of lava flows, only incandescence. In hindsight, was this a warning sign?
Ash, Jan 15 2024
Lewotobi Laki-laki erupts quite regularly, on average about once a decade. These eruptions can last a long time: 6 months is not unusual and the 1921 eruption lasted almost a full year. On the VEI scale, 2 is normal and 3 is reached on occasion (1932, to be precise) although these numbers should be taken as estimates rather than measurements. A larger eruption (also VEI-3) is mentioned which happened somewhere around 1675. 2024 fits the pattern very well.
Another aspect of these volcanoes is a tendency to form small lava domes. It seems plausible that yesterday’s larger eruption of Lewotobi Laki-laki was due to this. In fact, the larger 1932/33 eruption is also attributed to a lava dome, which grew over a period of 4 months. During dome growth, small explosions become more frequent; larger explosions may occur around the start of dome growth.
Yesterday’s explosive eruption happened just after midnight when people were sleeping. Reports are fragmented and it is not clear exactly what happened. Either 9 or 10 fatalities are reported. Reportedly, instead of ash, this time rocks came down. The reports of heat raise the possibility that a pyroclastic flow occured but this is not stated. The houses here are not particularly strong and collapsed under direct hits. A local convent (Flores is largely Christian) was affected.
The eruption column was reportedly 2 kilometer high. However, it is not clear whether this was measured or guessed. The destruction of dwellings occured to a distance of 4 kilometers. That is similar to the (fluctuating) size of the exclusion region. But this region extended to different distance in different directions, so it is possible that the explosion just came in an unexpected direction. Note that the (few) images show damage to houses but limited ash – this was not that large an explosion.
The main question will be whether this was due to an exploding lava dome. So far, the 2024 eruption had been fairly typical but this explosion was larger than expected. Lava domes here form but do not explode – normally. An alternative would be that this was a minor flank collapse. Either can be related to the fact that eruption was no longer producing lava in spite of the intensification. The lava went somewhere – and increased pressure.
Volcanoes will surprise us and the past does not always predict the future well. It seems likely that this was a one-off and that Lewotobi will return to a more quiet form of eruption. Still, it is wise to keep a safe distance of any flaming mountain. But that is not always easy when your house and farms are there.
Albert, November 2024
Thanks Albert! You have pulled a lot of fascinating stuff together in a very short time.
I had looked yesterday for some news coverage of the eruption, but there was very little detail – not even on Indonesian news sites. But this morning saw this AFP report, which had a fair bit of detail. Whether it was a dome explosion or something else my impression is the incandescent rocks were fired many kilometres – well outside the exclusion zone. That’s like a 155mm howitzer – a serious amount of acceleration!
Indonesia volcano eruption kills 10, sets houses aflame (AFP, 4 Nov)
An intrusion of Kilauea just started. IKI burped, SDH and ESC started heading down, then the POC started showing inflation. I think this magma surge is bypassing Halemaʻumaʻu and coming from deep within the bowels of of the beast herself . Very little earthquake activity is showing yet though. Whoever called an early November eruption became the Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!
Not yet, still a small signal and seems to have stopped, but the fact there was simultaneous sharp uplift at Pu’u O’o and a similar drop at SDH is interesting. But theres no earthquakes anywhere, Kilauea is very fast to erupt but there are a lot of earthquakes when a dike is forming still.
Still though, I predicted November 10, still 5 days 🙂
There was a magnitude-4.8 earthquake 38km below Pahala. Has someone found out the meaning of the swarms since 2019? Can we say that one of Kilauea’s eruptions or intrusions used magma that caused the deep swarm activity?
https://earthquakeinsights.substack.com/p/m57-earthquake-shakes-hawaii
Look at this article and it’s sources.
This is an interesting study that also looks at the past of PMFZ (Pahala Mantla Fault Zone) quakes: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020GL091096
The number of Pahala deep quakes already began to increase significantly 2015, before the disruptive changes 2018. “From 2015 to mid-2019, the rate of PMFZ earthquakes was usually between 10 and 100 events/month”. Since 2019 the number of earthquakes often exceeded 100/month.
2015 the increasing number of PMFZ quakes coincided with higher activity of both Mauna Loa, Kilauea and Loihi.
Summary: “Our preferred interpretation for the cause of unrest is mechanical stress transfer between a large intruded source volume and the surrounding volcanoes … We suggest that the current record event rate in the PMFZ similarly reflects a surge of magma at the top of the mantle.”
The Pahala structure is interpreted as a sill at a depth where the feeders for Kilauea and Mauna Loa diverge. The earthquakes are not in the sill: they must be in the solid rock responding to changes in the sill. The recent quake was very large for this depth and suggests that a substantial fault moved.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2023JB027029
Im not going to claim HVO is wrong but the connection to Mauna Loa doesnt look strong, while they do at least publically seem to downplay how much the swarm intensified in 2019 following a particularly big eruption at Kilauea when they talk about it starting in the mid 2010s or earlier. Mauna Loa has deep quakes right under it, but they are not particularly frequent, probably because Mauna Loa has low supply typically in recent decades.
Kilauea by contrast, is extremely active, has enormous supply rate, and abundant quakes along the entire magma system directly linking to the Pahala swarm. Its even visible in the picture you linked, vertical alignment of quakes going to Kilauea (vertical on that axis) but only a presumed connection to Mauna Loa.
This is a scientific author’s opinion, I doubt HVO has an official position about Pahala yet.
The peak years of the Pahala swarm, the second half of 2021, 2022, and the first half of 2023, didn’t have any unusual Mauna Loa activity. Kilauea even entered a really quiet phase during the early ramp-up of the swarm and when Pahala tremors were at their strongest, with very low seismic and deformation rates in 2020 and the first half of 2021. Unlike Pahala (which has seen the strongest swarming ever recorded), the Mantle Fault Zone (which is the seismic region between Pahala and Kilauea) has not seen any uptick in activity whatsoever, and may even continue the slow downward trend since the 1960s. I think the only volcano that became more active with the Pahala swarm was Loihi/Kamaʻehuakanaloa since it had six intense swarms possibly associated with dike intrusions in 2020-2022. So for me, it’s highly dubious Pahala was supplying magma to Kilauea or Mauna Loa, that’s my take on the data.
Kilauea has only really ramped up strongly in deformation rates and seismicity following the strong swarms of deep long-period earthquakes ~40 km under the summit of Mauna Loa that took place in 2023. Many of these deep LPs were deeper than the main seismic area of the Pahala Swarm and similarly deep to the spasmodic tremors under Pahala.
Looking at the IRIS earthquake browser the recent events at Kama/Loihi may also have a link to Pahala. On October 1, a sudden earthquake flurry started halfway between the Pahala coastline and Kama/Loihi at various depths ranging from 37 to as little as 14 km, the shallowest ones being the closest to Kama and close to the depth of its magma storage. It’s the strongest swarming in that particular location since the high activity in the general area started, although still weaker than the main earthquake cluster around the town of Pahala. Shortly after, following a few months of seismic quiet, Kama activates with a flurry of earthquakes on October 7-October 17, south of the summit. This was probably a prelude to the powerful Kama swarm of November 2 which I think must have been a dike intrusion, maybe an eruption even.
Eminently possible. Pahala is equidistant to Mauna Loa, Kilauea and Lo’ihi. The depth of the quakes is similar to these distances. So it can act as a central point where the stresses from these three balance, allowing magma to accumulate before deciding where to go. Eventually, one would expect that Pahala will develop its own volcano as the distance is also the typical separation between Hawai’s volcanoes.
I didnt realise HVO was not behind that paper. I think maybe they are being ambiguous then because they have a seismic network collecting data on it, or at least did.
I do want to add, but the main line of the Pahala swarm is probably a fault line that lines up exactly with the western mobile block of Kilaueas south flank, below the SWRZ. In February when there was intrusion there was actually a curious quake swarm basically right at the surface at Nali’Ikakani point, so this fault might go from the surface to 40 km deep. Its possible the gap between this fault and Kilauea is quiet because it is already open but also probably just because magma isnt really pushing on anything the same way. If the Pahala quakes do trace out a deep fault line then that would imply that the SWRZ at least structurally is a thing behind it too, although the volcanism isnt eccentric.
I also would argue that the swarm shouldnt really coincide with activity at the volcanoes, if it flaring up in 2019 isnt coincidental then there seems to be about a year between it and Kilaueas activity. I first recall any mention of deep quakes under Pahala in 2016, which was about a year after Kilaueas summit first overflowed, and the summit began persustently inflating eventually to breaking point in 2018. A year after that and decompression might have reached the deep parts of the plumbing. And a year after that Kilauea starts erupting again and inflating very rapidly. I havent attempted a count but it does look like the deep quakes are more numerous now than even 5 years ago.
I guess, the 3rd option, is that we get a really weird eruption that actually is eccentric to one of the central volcanoes. Kilauea has resurfaced most of itself enough to completely obscure anything pre Holocene outside of the Hilina pali. But what about the 1 in 1000 or 10000 year events? My understanding of the ‘post shield’ stage is that the deeper plumbing is still the same, just the supply isnt high enough to keep a large basaltic magma chamber active above it. Eruptions of this stage are rare, usually big, and erupt right from the deep system. Kilauea and Mauna Loa should be able to do this too, just normal activity obscures it. Only 1 post shield eruption has happened for certain since Cooks landing, so they are rare on human timescales. Potentially, the 1859 eruption of Mauna Loa, and the 1959 Kilauea eruption, might be examples. Both being located in areas if their volcano that are outside the normal magma system.
It might be better to describe it as a fault plane rather a fault. At this depth it would be a plane between different layer of rock, rather than a fracture in a rock. The plane does not have to be horizontal! Such planes are sources of weakness in rocks and are good locations for sills to form
The study about PMFZ assumes that there is a “mantle surge” below Pahala that is parallel to the volcanic roots of the volcanoes (where DLP quakes happen regularly). Seismic swarm quakes below Pahala mean, that the mantle surge increases pressure on the plumbing systems of the volcanoes and support the rise of magma.
“if the Pāhala surge and shallow unrest are causatively linked, we favor a model in which static stress transfer from magma intrusion into the lower lithosphere beneath Pāhala is the primary mechanism for perturbation of neighboring systems (Figure 4).”
Albert I mean this is basically a transform fault going right to the surface from 40 km down, or it is two faults in parallel at different depths. If magma intruded it the structure would be near vertical. However the SWRZ is also in contact and eruptions at least recently have not occurred along the fault so it it likely not a weakness in that way. Otherwise its pretty likely that we would be watching some sort of massive lava eruption happening at this location as we speak.
Its not particularly visible today but often after the swarm has flared up it traces a line going from the SWRZ to the coast.
Its also curious but right now and actually ever since the September eruption, there have been blue depth quakes around Kilauea itself a little more frequently, and a persistent and sometimes intense swarm of yellow depth quakes at the caldera (~10km deep). The south flank quakes also extend further east as far as to Pohoiki although the ERZ stations dont show much magma getting east of Pu’u O’o yet.
Remember how much the rocks change going to that depth. They become hot and under high pressure and more plastique – ductile. No transform fault is going to cut through to that depth: they work on brittle crust. Hawaii is a layer cake, with lava flows lying on old oceanic crust with the moho depth at 17 km or so below sea level. Below that is the lithosphere where magma percolates up through small cracks. (In the crust, dikes may be the main magma transport mechanism.) The asthenosphere (whoever came up with that name!) is at 80 km depth. The Pahala swarm is within the lithosphere. There is evidence for a magma sill at a depth of ~40 km below Kilauea but this is not clearly connected to the Pahala swarm at the same depth. But the fact that at depth, structures are mainly horizontal suggests that Pahala is indirectly related. But of course, the earthquake swarm is not in a magma sill but in rocks adjacent to it. So it could be an intermittent structure where magma collects before it is being pushed out again, similar to what we are seeing at Reykjanes.
Not to Pohoiki, to northeast of Kalapana. Pohoiki is a lot further northeast. The furthest east swarms on the south flank are downhill of JOKA station, in the area where the 2018 dike started from.
(IKI, one month, live)
(SDH, one month, live)
IKI, after it’s drop, seemed to reverse and the rates are rapid towards the NNE, while SDH is normal. UWE doesn’t show anything. Maybe it’s broken?
Doesn’t look instrumental but may be a local effect. Tilt meters need to be treated with a great deal of caution. It is never fully clear what they measure. If it is not found on multiple tilt meters, best to wait a day and see what happens before drawing conclusions.
Basically, I meant the UWE was broken – being mostly straight with small but sharp jumps. Granted, it is now less accurate without the UWE, but at least we have 2 operating ones that are working.
I feel like I sound like that one guy who complained about the Iceland cameras, but personally, I think they should fix UWE to its normal functions so we get more accurate readings.
I’ve always found the UWE tiltmeter to be the most insightful instrument on Kilauea, particularly during the years when activity was focused at the summit. So I also hope they can fix it soon.
It probably is instrumental, naybe even only a bug on their sute as no mention of a problem anywhere. But it is still visible that a few weeks ago it immediately dropped like 300 microradians and has been flat since.
Possibly, it was bumped or turned off during deconstruction of the old HVO building but just a guess. The signal now isnt natural in any case.
UWE looks broken. There is no measurement taken but the jitter suggests that the various automatic corrections are still being applied. IKI is in better shape.
Thanks for this background information about a recently attention catching volcano!
Flores reminds linguistical to Flores Island (Azores) and is related by Portuguese language. Eastern Indonesia was part of Portugal’s colonial empire: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Empire_in_the_Indonesian_Archipelago
Both the recent and historcial eruptions of Lewotobi remind to the danger of “small” VEI2 and 3 eruptions. An intense short-term VEI3 can be as disastrous as some long-term VEI4 eruptions. Vulcano usually does VEI 3 eruptions. Vesuvius March 1944 was a VEI 3 eruption. Etna’s millenium eruptions (around 2001-2002) had VEI 3.
Voyager 1 downlink carrier re-established on S band – no usable telemetry currently
https://blogs.nasa.gov/voyager/
SPACECRAFT NAME Voyager 1
RANGE 24.80 billion km
ROUND-TRIP LIGHT TIME 1.92 days
ANTENNA NAME DSS 63
AZIMUTH 221 deg
DOWN SIGNAL SOURCE VOYAGER 1
FREQUENCY BAND S
DATA RATE 0.000 b/sec
POWER RECEIVED -180 dBm (1.0 x 10-24 kW)
There is a significant chance that this is the end for Voyager 1. It depends on what is wrong with the X-band transmitter, but this sounds potentially serious. Wait and hope.
Someone elsewhere spotted a 39.52 bps telemetry lock on S Band for a short time via Madrid using at least three dishes in array mode (DSS 63, 65 and 54) so they might be able to continue to get data at a very low bitrate – probably considerably lower than 40bps though for reliability. Pretty sure they can’t dedicate 3 or 4 dishes to track it for any length of time.
As the fault occurred seemingly when they switched on a heater I’m hoping the X band transmitter is fine and fault protection just shut it down. At least they’ve been able to confirm that Voyager 1 can still hear the DSN by instructing it to change modulation of the S band signal and confirming that happened. Fingers crossed.
From reading through some more Voyager technical documents – especially https://voyager.gsfc.nasa.gov/Library/DeepCommo_Chapter3–141029.pdf
It seems that at the moment the S-band transmitter is in low power engineering downlink 40 bps via the HGA. The option appears to still exist (even if X band has failed) to switch to High Power S-Band but that leaves less margin for remaining science but should improve telemetry.
The NASA blog post confirmed that the spacecraft was currently using the S-band transmitter at lower power than previous X-band so I wonder what’s riskier – try to turn X band back on or tell the working S-band to switch to high power to try and get more fault analysis data downlinked assuming they don’t already have what they need.
Since this was a power level issue, turning the S-band to higher power is likely to lead to the same outcome. And the spacecraft is short on power anyway with the radioactives having decayed over time
We don’t know for certain if it was an available power issue and the heater could have been coincidental as there should have been enough power to turn on the heater after all and during the fault recovery it should have entered safe mode with X band transmitter on as it seemed to do initially. The main expected case to turn on S band only should have been if fault detection could not see any RF power output at the X band transmitter despite it being powered on so it could be that the last operational X band transmitter failed possibly with a power surge.
Buy yes if the issue is that somehow available power is much less than thought then they may not have enough power for high power mode on either band. The X band transmitter is normally on at all times in low power mode or high power mode when needed as cycling it on or off completely is believed to drastically shorten its life. After the first fault the spacecraft came back with X band at 40bps on low power then another 2 faults are suspected to have occurred causing it to turn on S band. One possibility is that X band simply failed completely either as a cause of or as a result of power (cycling) issues. If that’s the case then though not ideal they should still have power margin for Hi S-band – that’s my backup hope anyway.
Of course the best possible solution is some transient issue occurred and X band is fine if they just turn it on again!
Yes! Madrid receiving X-band from Voyager 1
ANTENNA MADRID DSS 63
DOWN SIGNAL SOURCE VOYAGER 1
FREQUENCY BAND X
DATA RATE 159.8 b/sec
POWER RECEIVED
-160 dBm
(1.0 x 10-22 kW)
Thanks for the article. It’s good to take a break from my typical caldera material. Hopefully Lewotobi goes back to sleep and no one else gets hurt.
It appears as though laki laki has formed an erm… basaltic lava lake…straight after it’s andesitic dome burst/lateral blast.
Wow, the Mount Lewotobi Laki Laki volcano really dusted things in the region
?auth=9db0114c01ee9c7f14b60c882b6bcf978738fcb6d4d0a6d397d615d2c5917472&focal=0%2C0&width=800&height=533
Thank you Albert for quick dig on Lewotobi. GeologyHub ran his take as well. mentioned potential minor flank collapse and new lava lake. And 1 dead was found alive! Unfortunaly 9 victims died and large material damage.
KNHD, 12 hr, live
STCD, 12 hr, live
Eruption coming? KNHD doesn’t show the earlier signal that showed up on others less than 12 hours ago (also tremor at summit, too). Find it weird, might be false alarm but interesting.
KNHD, 48 hr, live
STCD, 48 hr, live
Same ones but 48 hours, from similar areas.
PAUD, 12 hr, live.
This one is also showing similar readings. Nothing on tilt so far, but this might only be a matter of time.
which volcano is this ???
Kīlauea…
Lewotobi erupted again, ash up to FL500
Cam image here:
Videos in the media are showing pyroclastic flows. I’m guessing those must have killed the 9 people during the November 3 eruption?
Think some of it was down to the lava bombs and the eruption being at night. The 1 person presumed dead but found alive was under eath a house flattened by a sizeable bomb.
Has the lava lake survived?
There can be no true lava lakes with lava of such high viscosity… Terms pond or dome I think would be preferable. This volcano is often effusive but it’s similar stuff to Merapi and Semeru. Crystal rich andesitic magmas.
It was on the geologyhub video, blame him
I might have to swallow my words cause I’ve now seen images of the recent lava flow and it’s way more fluid than the older flows of Lewotobi. That said, I’m still highly suspicious of this supposed lava lake.
Where are these pictures, I was also a bit sceptical of a true lava lake but the fact the lava actually flowed a distance is interesting, Merapi basically doesnt have lava flows, and Semeru is not viscous enough for making domes but it still isnt exactly free flowing. I have seen pictures of the lava fountains though and they dont look like viscous magma, very similar to Etna paroxysms.
Here, for example:
https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/lewotobi/news/235610/Lewotobi-Lakilaki-volcano-Flores-Indonesia-alert-status-lowered-to-Level-2.html
It’s still more viscous than volcanoes like Villarica, I think. But it’s clearly more fluid than older Lewotobi lavas, which are about 50 meters thick, basically like Bagana’s.
The flow from earlier this year extended 4 to 5 km in a narrow lobe. I am not sure whether that was in a valley, but the length for what was a minor eruption seemed to indicate fairly mobile lava
I’d say the lava flows similarly to Karangetang or Mayon.
We can consider a lava dome = a frozen lava lake; or a lava lake as a molten lava dome.
Do mixed types exist between lava domes and lava lakes? I remember f.e. the recent eruption of Agung on Bali, that the crater had a mass of half molten and half solid lava.
I imagine that some domes are more solid and others more soft like wax, depending on heat and chemical composition of magma.
Volcanophil there is a spectrum of magma viscosity but I think there is a hard cut off for what counts as a lake ir dome. Lava lakes are a free flowing liquid. Once it becomes more like a paste that can move but isnt free flowing that is another thing, which I dont think has a good name but could be called a ‘pancake dome’, like Kilauea fissure 17. As viscosity increases eventually this lava doesnt behave like a real liquid and only when it is erupting in this state should it be called a lava dome in my opinion.
Lava lakes can probably only really be made of hot mafic magma. Pancake domes are probably usually made of cooler mafic magma or of andesitic magma, but some hot felsic magma also takes this form. Lava domes are viscous to the point of appearing solid, and probably need a cool felsic magma to form, lava domes of a less evolved composition probably always consist of felsic magma with mafic crystals and are only mafic bulk composition.
I remember that lava domes in the Caribian arc (Soufrière Hills) sometimes built tall towers of solid rock. Other domes can change to short lava flow behaviour, as f.e. in St. Helens sometimes during the effusive eruptions:
“Most of the growth occurred when magma extruded onto the surface of the dome, forming short (650 to 1,300 feet), thick (65 to 130 feet) lava flows” https://www.usgs.gov/volcanoes/mount-st.-helens/science/explosions-and-dome-growth
That is just exivenous vs endigenous growth. Kilaueas lava lake in 2022 was rising mostly by endogenous growth so its a process that occurs in fluid lava too. I think lavadomes that form frrom stacked lava flows are what lava cones like Bagana are, Santiaguito is always called a lava dome but is mostly or entirely overflows and also a proper mountain in its own right so should be called a lava cone too. So we have at least two presently active lava cones. They I guess are evolved equivalent of lava shields but that also might be entirely morphological not magma composition. I guess a basaltic lava cone that is morphologically the same structure is just a spatter cone, so Santiaguito is an immense spatter cone forming in extreme slow motion 🙂
Point being that all of these things are kind of the same thing of effusive magma at the surface, but a lava lake specifically is a free flowing runny liquid that would splash and feel like a liquid.
Pretty plume of black sand!
FL500 = 50.000 feet, ~15km
3rd in a row, image by: Ghele Radja Arios
https://i.imgur.com/43niQwz.jpeg
Nice 2 minute video of Semeru (eastern Java) eruption on nov5th 2024
NASA published a new satellite picture of Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki from November 5th. Clearly showing the layer of fresh ash on the landscape, but also an older lava flow that is also present in older pictures.
NASA’s short article can be found here:
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/153549/mount-lewotobi-laki-laki-spews-ash
The thin lava flow is the one that was mentioned in the post. It formed early in the year. There had been no reported lava for quite a few months
Beautiful! The blacker ash covers around 20km2 in this image. That suggests a volume of 0.01 to 0.001 km3: no more than a VEI 2. The convent that was destroyed was located around 4km northwest from Lewotobi, so in the general direction of the ash but not I think in the densest part (which was more to the west). The other photos of damage seem to be from the same village and also suggest the ash in that village wasn’t that large. It would have been outside the exclusion zone.
Note the whiter ash close to the crater, also in the same direction. There is also some new light coulored debris on the upper parts of the lava flow.
My guess: this was an explosion which removed an evolved lava dome and exposed the new magma below. The explosion may have caused a rocky debris flow in the direction of this village. Other than this debris, the damage was limited. It wasn’t a pyroclastic flow, at least not this far out. I don’t see much evidence for ballistic rocks: more likely is that they rolled down the mountain.
The deadly event was a Pelean VEI 2 eruption. The satellite image shows the horizontal movement of tephra. If it had been a vertical ash cloud, the volcano probably hadn’t produced big news.
Imagine Mount St. Helens 1980 had done the historical eruption with the VEI 2 force of Lewotobi. It would still have been dangerous in immediate neighbourhood, but David Johnston would had a chance to survive at 10km distance.
Around 2021 Fagradalsfjall was seen as a subsystem of Krysuvik. Now we’ve seen that Fagradalsfjall is the mother system for Sundhnkur’s present eruption cycle. If so, can it become true, that also parts of Krysuvik are subsystems of Fagradalsfjall? Was the theory wrong, that Fagradalsfjall belongs to Krysuvik, because Krysuvik belongs to Fagradalsfjall?
The distance between the fissures of Sundhnukur to Fagradalsfjall’s fissures is nearly the same as between the fissures of Krysuvik to Fagradalsfjall. The lavas of Afstapahraun (Krysuvik) are in immediate neighbourhood of Meradalir and Litli Hrutur. They were the first eruption of the Medieval Fires in 900. 1151-1188 was a second wave of lava volcanism called “Ögmundarhraun”. This lava field is only around 1 mile or 2 km away from Afstapahraun.
The Afstapahraun eruption was so close to Fagradalsfjall, that it seems possible, that the eruption indeed might have been linked to Fagradalsfjall.
I wants to write a post on some Kilauea stuff and the recent lava flows seen on Io by Juno… but Im very busy and barely haves time for VC. Thats saied Io is specialy addictive for me, I always daydream walking around the rim of a huge spattering Ionian ultramafic lava lake in my spacesuit, freaking needs more probes for Io.
Would wait a year on that, I think 2025 will be a busy year at Kilauea and there might be nore Io data available.
Hi.
Found a study about ground deformation using INSAR in Terceira Island (Azores), the webpage looks great, but i´m no expert to extract any useful conclusion, can someone give some feedback?
https://riskandrecovery.emergency.copernicus.eu/EMSN197/reporting/
The INSAR study, compromises 3 volcanic areas:
– Santa Barbara volcano is in seismic unrest since in 2022, with a volcano alert of V3 (level 6 – erupting);
– East of Santa Barbara Volcano – Terceira Fissural zone, has a current volcano alert of V1;
– West, Serreta Ridge (which erupted late 90’s) is set also to V1.
While the Azores Volcano Observatory is very closed, with no public access to data/information (seismic, GPS, etc), they confirm in June this year that some deformation was visible in the last months, but no chart / image / something to visualize was shared.
Thanks.
I can’t spot anything too obvious in the interferograms.
What is with the ongoing earthquake swarm near the Volcano Islands? 97 earthquakes over 4.5 mag in the last week according to USGS, and around the same spot near the trench.
The largest was a 5.8: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000nqb9/executive
An unusually large aftershock zone for a M5.8
main shock? Methinks this a true swarm where a section of fault just crumbles in pieces without producing a typical mainshock-aftershock pattern.
As of now, the shocks are forming a triangle about 45 miles long on each leg and extend from a shallow 8km depth to near 40km (high uncertainty though, given the remote location)
Also note that most/all of the shocks are within a narrow range of magnitudes between 4’s and the M5.8 “big one”.
I think some of them are foreshocks. The 5.8 isn’t the oldest.
Do subduction zones experience gradual slippage in one small area? Might it rip a bigger chunk of the fault?
I tried to look to see if the deeper earthquakes are on one side (further away from the fault) but too many of them have a depth of 10km also known as “we don’t know” and by eyeball, no clear pattern.
The post has been updated with the recent information and speculation. See the start of the post
thanks so much for the article Albert – great job, can hardly believe that a fault capable of 7.8 is under studied – I think 7.8 is the same as the san andreas fault big quake (right ?), Indonesia looks too geologically exciting for my blood 🙂
https://youtu.be/LmzFvZ31ih4?si=0HfpNDbkuQyDMtpZ
Interesting video on the dwarf planet Makemake, and that it might be geologically active with an ongoing cryovolcanic eruption. Was an off comment of it covering 1% of its surface, which is about 6.4 million km2, so 64000 km2 covered by ‘hot’ material. Makemake is a pretty small object, so easier to be ejected that far, but still gravity there isnt that weak, 1/10 of Earth, a bit less maybe, so it would be like a volcano showering over 6000 km2 with hot material. Would probably be at least a VEI 4-5, or a much bigger eruption in volume if it is effusive.
Maybe this is better considered as a thought experiment than a certain observation but interesting still. We might not find Planet X, or even planet 9 that we are actually expecting. But the Oort cloud and distant Kuiper belt are so unexplored I would not be surprised if there are planetary mass objects out there. And doubtless thousands of dwarf planets just like Makemake 🙂
Pluto apparently has an ocean, so Makemake could easily have something going on. Makemake is a bit further out and smaller though.
We could float effortlessly in Pluto’s subsurface ocean (Space.com, 24 May)
Makemake is squished like a football…the American kind…due to rapid spinning like a skater. This would likely support substantial deformation of the interior. Speaking of the American kind…I guess we are all here after the VEI 9.0 eruption in the United States…
Was that Wah Wah Springs? Must’ve just missed it
Published photo of Lewotobi today (I’m not sure about when it was taken)
https://www.tagesschau.de/multimedia/bilder/blickpunkte-9082.html
Ongoing eruption today:
https://magma.esdm.go.id/v1/gunung-api/informasi-letusan/3d10868e-9e14-11ef-8afe-005056b54356/show
Etna appears to also erupt with an ash cloud to 7300 m, but I haven’t seen photos/videos yet. The “volcanoes and volcanism” group shows a tremor graph that indicats a Paroxysm. But bad weather makes the eruption impossible to watch.
A ~16km deep earthquake swarm with four Magnitude 2 earthquakes happened below Baejarfell Mountain (Ljosfjöll volcano) https://skjalftalisa.vedur.is/#/page/map
This part of Ljosfjöll volcanic system was active prehistorically. There were lava flows from Hitarvatn through the valley; on Road 539 you can see the old lava fields with Google Streetview. Also Grjötarvatn was a source for prehistorical lava flows. Eruptions there would both produce gentle lava flows and explosive lake entries.
I am trying to locate this, but the best that I can do is https://skjalftalisa.vedur.is/#/page/map
Can you provide more specific information?
Yes, the big red dots in the earthquake (“skjalfta” in Icelandic) map. Also IMO’s earthquake map shows the location well:
They are deep earthquakes, around 15km deep. Maybe The volcano catalogue describes the magmatic system of Ljosfjöll volcano:
“Nothing is known about the plumbing system but the geographical change in chemistry of the products seems to point to local ascent of basaltic magma from depth rather than lateral flow of magma from centre along the fissure swarm. The magma appears to ascend along reactivated old faults in the upper crust.”
That sounds as each location has its own vertical magmatic path from Moho to the surface. Maybe like Hualalai’s eruptions on Hawaii, but on smaller scale.
There look like a few possible grabens there and eruptions are sometimes lines of cones or vents, so im not sure if it is completely true the area doesnt rift. Snaefellsjokull nearby seems to be without a rift zone preferred direction though. Ljosufjoll probably erupts in a very similar way to the eruption in 2021, except for the cone building and lava fountain stage probably being a lot more important. Most pyroclastic cones in Iceland are pretty small but the cones at Bifrost and along the rest of Ljosufjoll are all rather big.
So probably a fairly slow and harmless eruption that has tall fountains and lasts at least a few months, and is happening on a mountain above a coastal plain so runny lava and a steep slope. Should be very photogenic.
Perfect tourist eruption 🙂
The lava flows of Ljosfufjöll look indeed similar to the 2021 Fag. I volume. How fast can magma rise from -15km to 0km? If magma indeed is knocking there, I’m wondering whether it is a longterm sign (f.e. many years before) or a shortterm sign (f.e. some weeks before) for an intrusion/eruption.
I dont know if that can be predicted really. I had a look on the map and although this swarm is on the Ljosufjoll system it is far east of the old Ljosufjoll central volcano, in an old mountain made of Miocene rock but cut by grabens of probably Holocene age. The central volcano is a long ridge and probably erupts with long dikes along its length, but the eastern side is probably a rift controlled monogenetic field. Which is where the swarm is now.
There is a cone basically right at the site of the swarm, and there is a lake behind it. The crater of this cone is over 300 meters wide, and this size crater is present on many of the cones in this area, so eruptions here seem to have huge lava fountains and probably have a lava with a high gas content, consistent with rising fast from depth. But the lava flows arent too big and dont form large channels, so the actual eruption rate is probbaly not high, although probably higher than the eruption in 2021.
The last eruption in the area in 900 AD covered a bit over 12 km2 with lava, and made a lava shield and cone about 100 meters tall. At the high end this would give a volume of about 350 million m3, it is probably rather lower than this but 250 million m3 seems reasonable still, which would make it nearly twice the size of the 2021 eruption by volume, meaning it likely either erupted twice as fast or was at least a year long. The latter would be very good for Icelandic tourism 🙂
https://www.mbl.is/frettir/innlent/2024/11/08/goshrinan_undir_medallagi_stor_hingad_til/
First time I have seen a direct comparison of the recent eruptions to the eruptions of the Middle Ages. Basically seems like theres still a way to go at Sundhnjukur before its over. Its also something to consider if the Fagradalsfjall and Sundhnjukur eruptions are better considered as a single sequence and not two distinct rifts, given there is no interval between and the magma is the same origin. Which one is the primary might be a bit arbitrary.
Still if eruptions keep getting bigger then to get 0.5 km3 there might be 3 more eruptions, and maybe only 2 of those will happen next year. Its also possible with two rifts opened that the series might go up to a full 1 km3 in which case the last eruptions might be in a few years time and either a serious curtain of fire flood lava eruption of a dangerous scale, or another shield like in 2021. Just a speculation.
Maybe on the longrun the Reykjanes Peninsula is going to develop a recurring time close to the average recurring time for Icelandic eruptions: 5 years. Then with larger and more serious eruptions.
Can we apply the graph about Grimsvötn (cumulative seismic moment) on Sundhnukur’s eruptions? https://www.volcanocafe.org/the-grimsvotn-eruption-of-5-may-2021/
Until now IMO predicts the next eruption of Sundhnukur Fires by usage of inflation. Can the cumulative seismic moment be used here?
They predict the Sundhnjukur eruptions by using inflation because it has been reliable. Far as I can tell that isnt really true for Grimsvotn, which has gone years beyond any prediction made here.
I believe there was a comment that all of those had neglected to include the natural isostatic rebound of Vatnajokull, without that its possible the 2011 eruption is still in recovery, which makes sense given it was about 10x bigger than a typical eruption. The last eruption of similar scale from Grimsvotn (probably) was in 1873 and probably connected to the rifting of Askja and Holuhraun, interesting that the next VEI 4 was also within a few years of a rift in northern Vatnajokull. Anyway 1873 was followed by a VEI 2 10 years later and considering 2011 was closer to a 5, its likely 1873 was rather smaller. So 13 years after a VEI 4-5 is not weird.
Ignoring rifting generated plutonic magma the actual magma supply to Grimsvotn itself is maybe 0.03-0.05 km3/year, it might look like a lot more than that if there is convection between it and the deep plumbing, but the actual growth rate isnt high relatively. 2011 was 0.3 km3, so in theory we are break even now. However it has also become clear to me watching Sundhnjukur and Kilauea that most volcanoes significantly overshoot before erupting again, particularly when in recovery from a major eruption. Grimsvotn had a major eruption only 230 years ago.
I think Askja is much more likely to do the eruption we all think Grimsvotn will do, a fast eruption of lava with massive fountains from its ring fault. Not a VEI 4 but it would be if it was in water.
I think we would prefer not to get our fingers burned again with seismic moments! It worked well in the previous eruptions but has not done well on this cycle. We modeled it in the way that metal fatigue is done, where the rate of increase of fractions tells how close failure may be. So the total seismic moment itself is not most important, but the rate of increase is. (The seismic moment itself also depends on how large the active region is, and that may have changed after 2011.) The rate of increase in 2023 was indicating promise over the next 12-18 months. But it went away again this year, with a much slower increase more similar to what was seen in earlier phases of the cycle. It seems to me that the large earthquake 11 January this year (M4.3) took away a lot of the stress in the system. Instead of an eruption, we had an earthquake. Can’t trust volcanoes.
I didnt make a prediction for Grimsvotn. I had a look at Kilauea and at UWEV GPS 10 year plot that shows the full recovery of 2018 deflation, which as a side note the ERZ became active exactly at the sane point 2018 was triggered. But each eruption individually was followed by inflation that usually overshot the trigger for its predecessor by up to 50%. Grimsvotn isnt Kilauea but if this much overshooting is normal then to recover from 2011 might take around 0.5 km3 or more. In which case from my other numbers for yearly supply we might be close to eruption if the supply is at the high end or maybe still 4-5 years away at the high end.
My bet is Grimsvotn will erupt before 2030, but if it does so the eruption will be normal, meaning small. If no eruption happens before 2030 then a big eruption might be in the works but at the same time a 20 year gap at that point might mean the volcano has gone back to a more dormant state like in the mid 20th century.
Best look elsewhere in Iceland I think, as I said Askja will probably do the eruption we are all looking for, well at least a similar volume just mostly effusive. But to be honest the Reykjanes volcanism is getting serious and at this rate a fissure eruption of VEI 4 volume and intensity is entirely possible
It was a nice mathematical toy, a bit sad that it didn’t work longer.
How much have the recurring eruptions of Sundhnukur in common with Vatnajökull’s recurring ones? Vatnajökull (including Grimsvötn, Bardarbunga, …) erupts relatively regularly. Maybe during active times the RVZ behaves like Vatnajökull. We are currently during the “introductary” stage of RVZ Fires, so the frequent eruptions we’ve had since 2021 are probably a bit misleading about the general behaviour during next 400 years.
There was some physics in it as well. And as said, I think the January earthquake in part supplanted the expected eruption. We predicted failure – but not that failure. Still, any failure will do as far as the models were concerned.
Reykjanes is very different. At the moment the eruptions are on a low stress regime, where collecting magma is little confined by the crust. It is easy to move up. Over time, the stress will increase again and more and more magma pressure will be needed to break through. Grimsvotn is different: I think water plays a major role in its eruptions. Reykjanes is not really a spreading zone, but mostly a transform fault. But the faults perpendicular (or on an angle) to the main fault did show a lot of spreading recently, and that created space. The 2021 eruption was different and this did not repeat. (The two later episodes were from left over magma, not major new intrusions.) The Grindavik eruptions may repeat for some time although they will probably end quite suddenly at some point.
The Sundhnjukur eruptions and 2021 eruption have the same source, which seems to be very robust and is fed from deep in the mantle. It shouldnt really be surprising Sundhnjukur erupted, it was a major part of the 2021 swarm to the point it might have even had a small intrusion even back then, and I think it was in 2022 that a quake broke the surface there right before the eruption.
Even now there are persistent quakes on Fagradalsfjall but not on the 2021 dike, it might well end up becoming magmatic. Even if not its entirely likely Fagradalsfjall erupts again after Sundhnjukur.
I dont think it will end particularly suddenly, perhaps Sundhnjukur will but the magma will still be flowing in and could keep erupting anyway. It might only be Krysuvik waking up that really slows things down but thats still an open question and might have happened already.
That M4.3 had some interesting aftershocks. It looks a lot like a ring fault, about the same size as Bárðarbunga’s. It’s not restricted to one of the sub-calderas, but encircling them all (almost, the right Mickey Mouse ear is a little cut off).
I haven’t found a moment tensor for that quake. Would be interesting to know if it was a non double couple quake like those at Bárðarbunga.
Physics is applied mathematics, and physical models usually try to use the correct mathematics, although mathematics is always an ideal simplification of reality. It gets problems if “all other conditions” don’t remain the same.
During the 1210-1240 Reykjanes Fires “at least six discrete eruptions occurred at 2 to 12 year intervals.” This interval would apply to the average break of Icelandic volcanism. It’s possible that over time the Reykjanes eruptions will alternate with eruptions on the big famous volcanoes of Iceland (f.e. Hekla, Katla, Grimsvötn, Askja).
Alternation isnt the best word. More like the other volcanoes will sometimes erupt between or at the same time as eruptions on Reykjanes.
To be honest, maybe it was my own fault for taking all the speculation too literally, but Iceland has been far less active than expected outside of Reykjanes. But at the same time I have also found Iceland doesnt erupt constantly, just rather big. Holuhraun was way too downplayed at furst, it was in the top 10 biggest eruptions of all recorded history in Iceland, just 1 and 2 on that list completely eclipse everything else… Holuhraun probably would seem more impressive still if it wasnt beaten at its own game by Kilauea 4 years later though…
Based on how activity is today, Reykjanes is going to dominate in number of eruptions probably for the rest of our lives even if there are longer gaps. Outside of there I pick the Hekla-Torfajokull-Katla complex, and Askja, to do significant eruptions. Grimsvotn is hard to defend now after thinking about my last comment more, its slept long enough that I dont think it can fairly be called a very active volcano at present, I think it is a decoy for one of its neighbors… 🙂
Still, a few years ago I made a claim that Kilauea will have a full caldera formation eruption and all the precursors before we see another eruption in Iceland comparable to Holuhraun. I still maintain that, although the extreme intensity of the Reykjanes eruptions at onset is beyond my expectation.
If we look at the year 900 AD, when the Reykjanes Fires began with Afstapahraun, there were also eruptions at …
– Vatnajökull (Grimsvötn, Bardarbunga or a unkown one)
– Krafla
– Hallmundarhraun (Langjökull)
– Rauðhálsahraun (Ljósfjöll)
This shows that we can expect eruptions elsewhere, but it is impossible to predict now. Torfajökull is a possible bet. It showed seismic unrest recently and participated historically occasionally in Bardarbunga’s eruptions (f.e. 1477).
900 AD is a rough guess in the age of that lava, in all those eruptions. I assume there are observations recorded but finding them without knowing Icelandic might be hard. Its not unlikely all those eruptions were years or decades apart in time in reality too.
The majority of the volume of 1477 is from Bardarbunga or at least Vatnajokull derived magma, but the biggest craters and presumably first eruptions were closer to Torfajokull. So it is possible Torfajokull actually sets off the rifting that then goes northeast and enters Bardarbunga, which due to elevation rapidly sends magma down the rift. Until the area rifts again though this is only speculation.
But, Hekla has been very active recently, Torfajokull has also seen inflation that may or may not be ongoing. Bardarbunga is drained still and might be out if action, but Hamarinn (Loki-Fögrufjoll) to its southwest might be primed. Veidivotn is between them. So this time might be bigger than 1477, although probably not nearly as explosive. To get explosive eruptions I look at Oraefajokull, Þordarhyna and Katla, and possibly Askja if it tries to do a curtain of fire under Oskjuvatn… But all of these would be likely VEI 4s smaller than 2011.
A star under Askja this morning (just).
6.8 near Cuba, no reports of damage or death yet.
On the same fault of the 2021 Haiti earthquake, I think.
I think it was on the northern fault, not same. It is complicated zone for sure.
wiki link didn’t survive. 2021 was South of Gonave microplate, this is North.
The 2021 Haiti quake was on the same fault line, just with a different name. The 2010 Haiti earthquake was on the southern fault.
USGS seems to have today on Oriente Fault,
2021 was on Enriquillo-Plantain I believe, continuation of 2010 eq..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Haiti_earthquake
You are right. I had misread the 2021 map
USGS has a nice map included in the regional information for this quake:
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/tectonic/images/caribbean_tsum.pdf
I can’t insert it as it’s a PDF, but it’s got a lot of interesting tectonic information in it.
here is Earthquake Insight analysis
https://earthquakeinsights.substack.com/p/cuba-already-reeling-from-hurricane
Santiago de Cuba is certainly built on a busy place
sorry for the comment mess 🙁
No need to apologize.
Iya is a much higher risk volcano, which is showing a lot of unrest nearby to Lewotobi (raised to alert level 3 recently). I believe Geologyhub has covered this a bit and there has probably been some discussion here.
Big risk for landslide into ocean here, but this is also a past caldera eruptor from what I can see. And in the event that we got a landslide into the open ocean, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that this would trigger caldera collapse eruption as it would destabilize the lid too much along with potential Krakatau style interaction of water + magma.
Maybe something happening in Reykjanes. A slight tick down in inflation today in the stations north of Grindavik.
https://www.vedur.is/gogn/gps/reykjanes.html
Unfortunately it’s the dead of night, filthy weather, and few of the webcams I bookmarked are still working. Given it’s only a small interruption to the steady inflation we’ve been seeing it maybe nothing – although it appears on several stations. A dike? A sill maybe? But there’s nothing on the IMO earth tremor register, so who knows.
Meanwhile Krafla just won an award!
Krafla eruption film scoops festival award (RÚV, 11 Nov)
Well done that volcano!
The stations around the sill are still inflating. Svartsengi and Eldvorp have plateaued slightly, but HS-02 still seems to be rising at a similar rate. It’s possible the ones along the dyjke have dropped.
Yes, there was a slight drop yesterday but when I checked just now all the GPS sites are back on trend upwards. That magma is still rising.
It’s a fun thing with science: you think you might be seeing something interesting, then you wait a day and it vanishes…
Has anyone noticed that the Kilauea GPS stations are not updating again each day. Where is B Bound when you need him!
Yes I think HVO is having problens with their site displaying some stuff, not to mention whatever is happening with the summit tiltmeter. My guess is it is something to do with moving away from U’ekahuna bluff but they never mention a problem internally so it seems to be only on display.
https://mainichi.jp/english/graphs/20231115/hpe/00m/0na/001000g/20231115hpe00m0na004000q
Taken last year…
Nishinoshima looks to be your average typical island volcano, most of which formed in the last almost maybe 12 years. Wonder what its next steps will be…
It is entirely under 10 years old really, none of the old island is left now.
Here is a great pic of it at its peak though.
I found a paper on the last stage of eruption at Nishinoshima in 2020 and it erupted about the same in a few months as it had in 6 years prior. The cone (that was below sea level in 2013) probably got to over 300 meters higb, although that was before the wide crater formed.
https://earth-planets-space.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40623-022-01578-6
Its likely if eruptions resume in the near future they will be similar fountains. The magmas evolved from andesites to basaltic andesites in 2020 concurrent with fountaining. Although, the lava was already free flowing and fluid still in the andesite stage, which indicates it is hot.
Something is going on with Lewotobi!
FB translate:
—Advice to father, mother, sister, for tonight not to go near Boruk Hokeng and its surroundings. Currently recording of continuous Tremor with maximum aplitudo, visually the eruption is not observed, this is like there is a blockage in the center of the eruption and potentially causing a larger eruption. Asking for your cooperation not to enter the Boruk Hokeng and Nobo area.
All observation teams at the Male Lewotobi Volcano Observation Post have been evacuated independently. Anyone going to Larantuka, Konga to Maumere. I am now in Palue village. 10.2 km from the eruption center. —
There was a post from staff member of their observatory that they will evacuate, also people are reporting they hear constant booming souds but there is nothing (glow or smth) on the live stream, its pitch dark.
Interesting, right now satellites show a small plume of ash extending downwind, but this whole maximum tremor amplitude thing is concerning. I wonder what’s going on inside Lewotobi.
https://meteologix.com/id/satellite/nusa-tenggara-timur/volcano-alert-10min/20241112-1640z.html
Yes, the tremor went off the charts. I could here the constant ”boato” on the livestream, it sounds like Etna erupting during bad weather, but its constant. People reporting that they hear it in Maumere and Ende, but not sure if its true or panic reaction to the situation….
This is the last webcam snapshot:
Oooo wow what a great screenshot! this photo is the The Revelation of the Ringwraiths
I can almost see the nazgul ringwraiths at their gargoyle fell beasts mounts, flying around guarding Orodruin ( Mount Doom ), indeed evolved magmas with higher gas contents and higher viscoisities produce some really scary/ dramatic looking eruptions that coud be some kind of postcard for Mordor or a metal band. Andesite spanns a whole range of viscosities depending on temperature and crystal content from near lava domes to much more mobile blocky flows and viscous fountains, I saw an FB posts recently of an advancing spiney blocky Aa flow feed by Lewtobis lava fountains so the Andesite magma have had to be fairly hot for that flow type behaviour
Where was this video, I have seen a grainy one from a distance at night from the past day but nothing showing lava flows up close.
It seems like an overabundant supply at present, constant collapse and blockage from all the andesitic magma/domes built up over the years. This magma looks a heck of a lot more fluid (basaltic/basaltic-andesite?) and is very gas-rich. They would be wise to evacuate and let this process play out, as we could see the top being continuously blown off until it runs out of steam.
Thanks for the explanation! 🙂
Yes they increased the exclusion zone up to 10kms.
How thick are the lava flows of Lewotobi? If they are like Rhyolite lava flows (f.e. Obsidian lava flows), they can be very thick and viscous like yeast dough. But Lewotobi had Andesitic lava, so it might behave different.
Newberry volcano in Oregon did “the Great Obsidian lava flow” in pre-Columbian era ~1300 years ago: https://www.usgs.gov/volcanoes/newberry/science/big-obsidian-flow
The flow last year that went towards the east/nearby town was relatively slow moving and dare I say more andesitic than the current lava being erupted. Don’t think Lewotobi produces rhyolite, perhaps trachyandesite.
The lava in recent images looked very liquid. Maybe it is very hot and can use the steep slopes to run fast. Stromboli shows occasionally fast running lavas as well on its steep slope.
Vesuvius is probably reaching the bottom of activity. After the eruption 1944 most earthquakes were linked to sinking of the volcano. Sinking has stopped and earthquake number has increased recently. It is possible that re-filling of the magma chamber is going to start … maybe they should look for deep earthquakes that would indicate it.
German, but Google translation can help hopefully: https://www.vulkane.net/blogmobil/vesuv-zunahme-der-seismizitaet-im-oktober/
It really seems to me that Vesuvio and Campi Flegrei share the same deep source of magma. Vesuvio became quiescent towards the 13th century and CF dominated the supply in the middle ages up until the 1538 eruption. After a century of recovery, Vesuvio took over the supply in 1631 and stayed in a constant state of activity until 1944. Bradyseism at Campi Flegrei began just 6 years later. After 3 fits and starts in 1950, 1969, and 1984, CF has showed sustained uplift of 1 1/3 meters since 2005. I believe this volcanic system behaves to some extent like the Hawaiian Hot Spot. Over pressure at one Volcano can cause a delayed buildup of pressure at the other. Kilauea was dominated the magma supply until 1840, then Mauna Loa was Lord of the Supply until 1950. But then the Hobbit sized Kilauea stole The Precious and has had it every since. During periods of very high Hawaiian magma supply though, it seems one Volcano can operate as a pressure relief valve for the other like in 1868, 1983, and 2022.
Naples hosts a family of three volcanoes: Vesuvius, Campi Flegrei and Ischia. That’s a very dense volcanic neighbourhood. Why are there not other locations along the Italian subduction zone? Indonesia is dotted with volcanoes all along the subduction zone from Lewotobi to India’s Barren Island. Italy also has some rarely active volcanoes in Rome and Toscany, but otherwise Naples has totally monopoly for volcanism on Italy’s mainland.
In Italy, there’s only a trench next to the Aeolian Islands and the submarine volcanoes of Marsili and Palinuro. If the rest is a proper subduction zone I don’t know.
300,000 years ago there were many active calderas across the rest of Italy, like Roccamonfina, Colli Albani, Sabatini, Vico, and Vulsini, as well as the Amiata volcano and Volsci volcanic field. All of these were spread out over the Italian mainland as volcanoes of very rare ultrapotassic magmas that often produced ignimbrites from caldera collapse as well as more frequent small eruptions. But in the period 300,000-100,000 years ago, they went almost entirely inactive. Now that sort of activity is focused on the more concentrated Campanian volcanoes (the Ischia, Campi Flegrei, and Vesuvius trio).
Unlike Indonesia, the Italien subduction zone is linked to a microplate. This makes it probably more complicated and with regional effects.
Was there a variation of the active center of Italian volcanism along the peninsula? Did the Roman Volcanic Province (Colli Albani, …) once do the volcanism that the Naples volcanoes do now?
I read an article that said the first three Bradyseism crises at Campi Flegrei came to a halt because of brittle rock failure in the surrounding shallow magma chamber a couple of kilometers below sea level. I think this would be similar to how Mauna Loa behaved in March of 2021 when the large earthquake created more space for magma to accumulate and delayed the 2022 eruption. This article stated that Campi Flegrei has retained enough heat at shallow levels that the surrounding rock is no longer brittle and will continue to deform at a linear rate rather than a exponential increase followed by an equally sharp decay. Already, more heat is entering the system than can dissipate through degassing at Solfatara. Eventually the pressure inside the shallow chamber will punch the literal Roman concrete caprock and a new eruption will begin creating starting the cycle with Vesuvio over again.
There is a line of calderas stretching out into the Tyrrhenian sea, Campi Flegrei is the latest iteration, Somma Vesuvius may well be the next. Not a hot spot but an age-progressional weakness in the crust exploited as the subduction trench retreated, it runs parallel to a local large graben northwest of Pozzuoli.
https://watchers.news/2024/11/12/eruption-cacahual-el-aburrido-mud-volcano-antioquia-colombia-injures-eight-damages-homes/
Holy smokes! Thanks for posting this, Andy.
Possibility of some deep Pahala tremor with some of these quakes.
2024-11-12 21:06:44
Earthquake
Magnitude:2.5M
Depth:24.4mi
2024-11-12 21:01:33
Earthquake
Magnitude:3M
Depth:29mi
2024-11-12 17:54:18
Earthquake
Magnitude:2.3M
Depth:24.7mi
A more shallow tectonic quake followed on ERZ at half distance from recent eruption location to the coast: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/hv74529447/executive
The two years GPS shows that the summit stations of Kilauea had an overall optimum period in late summer 2024:
The June 3rd eruption on SWRZ happened during the rising phase of the summit deformation. https://www.usgs.gov/maps/june-6-2024-kilauea-southwest-rift-zone-eruption
The upper ERZ (DEVL station) had a short optimum during August and is lower today. Did magma pass through this area from the summit towards middle ERZ? The middle GPS stations didn’t show the optimum in summer 2024. Mauna Ulu’s stations have reached a high level never reached after 2018:
Pu’u O’o’s stations haven’t risen as much as Mauna Ulu, but they stopped the negative (deflation, sinking) tendency that followed after a flat optimum 2021.
Some deep quakes under the town of Volcano, one a 3.3. A shallow mag 3 quake at .9 miles near PUHR. Also a 20.8 mile 4.1 mag quake off the cost of Pahala. Tilt is showing some rise at IKI, UWE, and SDH. I have to help my 90 year old mom tomorrow and Saturday, she has no reliable cell service at her house, and no internet. Watch something happen while I am over there, but I doubt it…I think we will see some more action before any eruption
lol
Mac
Is it wise for someone that elderly to be cut off from rapid communications?
She is 90 years old and the daughter of a coal miner. She would rather be out in her yard for the rest of her life. Conditions have changed and she will be moving to assisted living shortly…breaks her heart.
Some more information here on the Lewotobi Volcano https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/world/flights-to-and-from-bali-cancelled-after-volcanic-eruption/video/0b2c428cc62e30a98968919491da5b10
https://www.ign.es/web/resources/volcanologia/html/CA_noticias.html
Teide with eq swarm.
New NASA pictures from Mount Lewotobi Laki-Laki. The eruption is still going strong:
Short NASA article here:
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/153581/indonesia-continues-to-erupt
Thank you for posting this.
Lewo today:
https://www.usgs.gov/observatories/hvo/news/volcano-watch-ailaau-or-kualoloa-hawaiian-chants-suggest-lava-flow-name
HVO Volcano Watch about renaming the Aila’au lava field north of Kilaueas ERZ. The name was apparently just provisionary but caught on, now being realised to have a real name.
Still interesting that HVO say it is Kilaueas biggest lava flow, maybe in area but it looks quite thin, Pu’u O’o could be more voluminous (almost certainly if 2018 is included). But the length of flows implies a high eruption rate but with large variability.
Was the main vent near Kilauea Iki? They write:
“The upland border of Keaʻau ahupuaʻa, where the Kualoloa chant notes the eruption began, is near the eastern end of Kīlauea Iki, where the mapped vent of the lava flows is located.”
It literally was Kilauea Iki, the eastern end of the crater is the small crater of the lava shield from that eruption, Nahuku lava tube starts right there. The main craters of Kilauea Iki are probably a smallish magma chamber that fed that eruption and collapsed after.
I dont know if the 1959 eruption is related to all of this though, it might be the first true eruption of Kilauea Iki since the Kualoloa flows but Pu’u Puai is also on the ring fault so might not be the same. Its also possible (maybe likely) that Kilauea Iki was altered in 1790, given it has filled in quite a lot since 1823 it seems unlikely it was untouched for 400 years before.
1959 was probably the first serious eruption of Kilauea Iki. During 19th century three minor eruptions (hours to few days) occured 1832, 1868 linked to Great Ka’u quake and 1877. 1959 was a classical twin eruption with a summit eruption (Iki) first and a low rift zone eruption (Kapoho) second.
Did the Kaluapele (Kilauea) caldera do an overflow towards the east during the Ailau / Kualoloa eruption? In this case lava would have passed Kilauea Iki, which additionally was erupting.
No, the Aila’au vent literally is Kilauea Iki, the vent is the easternmost part of Kilauea Iki crater where Nahuku lava tube starts.
Vents within the caldera area did overflow to the east too but those were a lot older, 700-900 years old and so not part of the Kulaloloa eruption. Im not sure how well studied those older flows are though, they might be from the Observatory shield vent but maybe Kilauea had many lava shields at uts summit, maybe on a line similar to the present one stretching from Mauna Iki through Halemaumau to Kilauea Iki, one of them must have had a prominent crater or small caldera but the rest is a bit of open interpretation. Its all only a memory now though.
Can also the MERZ do eruptions with lava flows towards the Keaʻau ahupuaʻa lava flow area? Is there enough space for northward variation of eruptions f.e. around Pu’u O’o?
No the terrain is too flat, the ERZ isnt actually a topographic ridge really until it becomes the lower ERZ, and that is too far from the summit and low down to do proper long lived eruptions at least today.
USGS has got a steepest descent lines map as a google earth .kml file, lava erupting from the ERZ can only flow as far north as Fern Acres and Ainaloa, nowhere near the northernmost edge of the Kulaloloa flow field. Only eruptions at the summit, and really only ones that can flow north from Kilauea Iki, can flow in this direction down towards Keeau. I guess in theory a really long lived eruption that breaks out on the north side of Pu’u O’o and is thus entirely directed north of the ERZ, maybe that could eventually creep into this far north area, but it would take a really long time and Pu’u O’o did flow this way for 2 years about 10 years ago and really didnt make much progress, so chances are that eruptions only very rarely get into that area. The last phase of summit overflows starting about 1000 years ago might have been the first time lava flowed that way from Kilauea in many millennia, and maybe the first time they ever got that far north, some of the lava is from Mauna Loa and from the earliest Holocene and directly overlain.
The map shows that some northern locations of Pu’u O’o erupted during the Kualoloa eruption. Lava flows ran towards Northeast:
The Aila’au eruption lasted over a 60 year period and covered the entire north flank of the East Rift Zone all the way from Kilauea Iki to the ocean near Hilo. Uncollapsed remnants of Thurston Howell the Third lava tube over this area indicate thin pāhoehoe flows. Last only 38 years, Pu’u O’o lava had less distance to travel to the ocean so flows tended stack on top of each widen over time. If I were to guess, Aila’au would have a higher surface area, but Pu’u O’o would close the gap in volume. A nice exercise to run the numbers for somebody who had the time. I still think a 60 year eruption beats a 38 year eruption every time and doubt Pu’u O’o had 1.6 times the flow rate of Aila’au. I welcome discussion however…
I can’t keep track of all the name changes…Loihi to Kama‘ehuakanaloa…Aila’au to Kualoloa… Thurston Howell the Third lava tube to Nahuku?…
Its been called Nahuku for a long time, not a new change.
Im also a bit sceptical the eruption was completely continuously overflowing for 60 years. Maybe active with a lava lake that long, but the longest flows from Pu’u O’o got 25 km from the vent, which is only a bit over half the distance from Kilauea Iki to Kaoli point and flowing in the same terrain. So presumably the Kulaloloa flows were erupted at higher rate. Pu’u O’o erupted at about 4 m3/s so it might have needed 6-7 or more to flow to Kaoli and it did that for long enough to make a tube the whole way too (Kazamura cave). At 7 m3/s for 60 years would be over 13 km3 of lava which is over twice the biggest number HVO actually has as a volume too.
So either the eruption was very episodic with overflows being widely separated by maybe years or more with only lava lakes and small flows near the vent. Or the eruption did erupt at 7 m3/s and only lasted for 15 years or so. I recall a comment by Hector that he got a volume of 3-4 km3 so actually less than Pu’u O’o. At 3.5 km3 and 7 m3/s the eruption would only last 15 years or so.
To be honest, the way the story goes it sounds like the eruption was actually quite fast, not like 2018 but it isnt described like it took 60 years. I do wonder if maybe the Observatory vent and rest of the summit had actually partly collapsed already, and Kulalaloa was a result of massive decompression melting exaggerating the magma supply for a while, like it probably is right now. Pu’u Kaliu on the lower ERZ very close to the 2018 vent is the same age as Kulalaloa and could have done it, with the major caldera collapse happening not too long after in the Kahawali eruption story, which probably went far offshore. But I have no real evidence of that, its just some speculation.
I don’t think that was the case. I found a paper (by Don Swanson) that, to my interpretation, the Kīlauea caldera formed after the Kualoloa eruption ended (the Keanakāko’i Ash). It is possible there might’ve been a few collapses in that time frame but not large or violent enough to create the ash deposits.
https://www.higp.hawaii.edu/~scott/Workshop_reading/Swanson_etal_2012.pdf
Also, they calculated that the Kualoloa eruption is about 5.2 km³ in volume, give or take 0.8 km³. On that note, they got the duration based on Pu’u’ō’ō’s eruption (of which they used 0.1 km³/year as a base).
https://www.academia.edu/74629597/K_and_x0012B_lauea_summit_overflows_their_ages_and_distribution_in_the_Puna_District_Hawaii
I think what might’ve happened was that Kīlauea’s Observatory Shield finished growing and magma attempted to go through the East Rift zone (or Southwest Rift), but something was blocking the way instead. It instead took a route through the weak points in the rim and erupted as the Kualoloa shield, where it might’ve erupted for years or decades until something opened and caused the chamber to catastrophically drain, ending the eruption and begin to form the modern caldera for many years to come.
On that same note, looking at the chant itself, it made no mention of the speed of the eruption…
https://www.kpohana.com/songs/kuaLoloaKeaau.html
All it mentions was the desolation of the eruption, meaning it could be at a certain duration.
Kilaueas prehistory is still pretty poorly known. HVO hasnt even really studied the prehistoric activity of the ERZ since the 90s. It is still often repeated in information about Mauna Ulu that it was the biggest eruption on Kilaueas ERZ in over 2000 years at the time, even though their own site gives a volume for the 1960 and 1840 eruptions being larger… I have noticed too that the only prehistoric lava flows HVO actually seems to have data on are summit overflows, even to the point of claiming Kilauea is basically dead for centuries between them, except the summit hasnt overflowed still since the Kulaloloa eruption to this day, the summit is still Keanakako’i ash, geologically we are still in that ‘low activity’ period where there is no output from the caldera. We know that isnt true because we have records, but we also have some data that the whole ERZ was resurfaced in the 18th century during the same time the volcano had low supply in their model.
0.1 km3 a year probably wouldnt be a high enough effusion rate to reach the northeast coast at Kaoli point. Flows struggled to get half as far in 2014 at that rate, and also in 2018 at Erta Ale. The Kazamura tube is also huge, it seems too big to have been made by flows at the same flow rate as Pu’u O’o, that also went down much steeper slopes that should allow more erosion of the base. I wont say their numbers are wrong but the volume seems too high and their eruption rate much too low. The Pele-Hi’iaka story describes Hi’iaka having 40 days to return to Pele with Lohi’au, and that after taking too long Hi’iaka ‘saw’ (with magic I guess) that Pele had burned the forest at Olaa, which is the eruption in question. Maybe 40 days is just for the story but that is a lava flow moving at over 1 km a day over a wide area, which is very fast. Even half of that sustained over such a distance is fast for a flow like this.
I will agree generally on the caldera being mostly younger than the Kulaloloa flows, I just had a thought on it being possible the caldera might have had a partial collapse before it, possibly over a wide area but with little vertical subsidence, maybe creating the outer fault south of Keanakako’i except it would have also been that way over all of the summit at the time. Maybe there was a line of pit craters along the actjve rift, Aila’au apparently filled in a pit crater early on so Kilauea Iki is a second generation. Then subsequently the main event made the main deep caldera later on, after all overflows ceased. And again in 1790, and 2018.
I might have to try to make maps of this to explain it better, unless I am not aware of direct evidence that says all this is completely wrong 🙂
The probably best reference on historic records of Kilauea activity from the Hawaiian natives is the journal of William Ellis that describes his travels through Hawaii as a missionary in 1823 (Journal of William Ellia a narrative of a tour through Hawaii in 1823):
Regarding Aila’au there are no specific mentions, but Ellis wrote down the following about the overflows and collapses of Kilauea:
“In earlier ages, it used to boil up, overflow its banks, and inundate the adjacent country; but that, for many king’s reigns past, it had kept below the level of the surrounding plain, continually extending its surface, and increasing its depth, and occasionally throwing up, with violent explosion, huge rocks, or red hot stones. The eruptions they said, were always accompanied by dreadful earthquakes, loud claps of thunder, vivid and quick succeeding lightning. No great explosion, they added, had taken place since the days of Keoua [1790], but many places near the sea had since been overflowed; on which occasions they supposed Pele went, by a road underground from her house in the crater to the shore”
He also described the crater of Kilauea Iki and said that this was its name. Which is where the Aila’au flows vent was located (on one side of the crater). If they want to rename the Aila’au flows (a good idea since Aila’au may have been a later invention and not an original volcano god) I think they could just simply call them the Kilauea Iki flows which is after all the name of the collapsed vent of the eruption…
Ellis also describes an eruption of roughly the same time as Aila’au when they were walking SE of Kilauea towards the sea:
“Within a few miles of Kilauea, we passed three or four high and rugged craters. One of them, Keanakakoi, the natives told us, sent forth, in the days of Liloa, king of Hawaii [who regned in ~1460-1480, similar years as Aila’au], about fourteen generations back, most of the lava, over which we were traveling. The sides of these craters were generally covered with verdure, while the brown irregular shaped rocks on their summit, frowned like the battlements of an ancient castle in ruins.”
What can be gathered from this statement is that parts of the “Aila’au” flows that reach towards to the south coast likely come from Upper East Rift Zone. eruptions. I’m not sure which is this mysterious vent of Liloa. There is Keanakako’i Crater, but that’s a pit and not a cone, like described by Ellis. One of the high craters described is likely Kokoolau, which could fit the descriptions and from its location send some of the Aila’au flows towards the south coast (its morphology is also somewhat shield-like). Another of the high craters must be the one next to Devils Throat, which I remember has the same paleomagnetism as Aila’au, but it’s a regular spatter cone from a small eruption. The third might be Puu Huluhulu, which earlier authors like Holcomb think may have fed the southern portion of the Aila’au flows. It’s also possible that there was an episode of activity in the UERZ that formed all Kokoolau, Devils Throat, and Puu Huluhulu.
Interesting. So the Kualoloa flows, hypothetically, are actually many different eruptions sorted into one eruption. If that was the case, the southern flows might as well been flows from the UERZ eruptions, the Kazumura Tube from the Kīlauea Iki part of the series and some of the southern flows possibly part of other eruptions, likely on the East Rift zone.
Looking at the map, it seems some of the flows part of the Kualoloa eruption (or eruption series) are either younger or older than what the majority of it is.
Taking a look at sample W5110 (southern arm), it seems to be much younger than what it supposedly took place. Granted, there are a few that are at a similar age in the main field itself, but taking a look at the range, it seems to be far outside than the other samples.
This is just based on one sample or even just a few samples over a very large field. For all I know, they might be part of the field, just miscalculated or maybe a slight error. Either way, more samples would need to be taken to confirm this.
That map fooled me early on, what looks like flows emerging from the ERZ is just because of younger flows burying them, and because the ERZ is faulted then many flows will move directly along the rift in straight lines. I havent looked at ages but i have seen suggestion the lava at Apua point might have erupted from Pu’u Huluhulu, which seems to be basically what Hector said above. I do find the suggestion of Kokoolau being a source interesting, most maps put it being very old but that seems kind of impossible so close to the summit, and Kokoolau is also right on the ERZ connector and where it firsts exits the outer caldera fault too, and is a focus of ongoing earthquakes too. We already got an eruption further downrift so a long eruption next to the caldera seems unlikely now but its not impossible for something to break out anyway.
I do get the impression though that we might not really have a very average view of how Kilauea actually behaves. Up to 1950 we had sparse reports of it rapidly refilling a major collapse, and then a century that Mauna Loa was taking much of the supply and nearly all of it at times. It is interesting that Kilauea Iki actually became a major vent very fast in 1959, a full open conduit that could have become a new lava shield. But the ERZ had just been opened only years earlier and so magma went that way. If the ERZ had been closed off then maybe we would have actually got a decades long summit overflow of Kilauea Iki again, but instead it happened on the ERZ and took another 25 years to fully commit. Perhaps it isnt over either and 2018 was just an interruption, soon to be resumed.
It is truely a shame the only two reliable ways to watch Kilauea in real time are both compromised now. The GPS on the ERZ are still racing up though, in 2 months nearly recovering 2018 deflation. I was wrong in my prediction for a November 10 eruption but theres only one outcome of the entire volcano being filled with magma so fast…
It’s possible that the 60 years eruption was indeed a series of eruptions like the 1960-2018 series of eruption on middle east rift zone.
The main Pu’u’O’o event lasted 35 years with only brief interruptions. So a 60-year eruption is not inconceivable. In a continuous eruption, lava has no time to collect debris/soil before the next flow comes across. So it is possible to tell the difference between a near-continuous event and one with phases which are years apart. My guess is that those debris layers are lacking here. Another difference may be that it a normal eruption, lava flow rates decline over time. That is true, for instance, for Laki. But a long-lived event such as Pu’u’O’o does not do this: it is long-lasting because it has a stable supply. So there are ways to tell the difference. But whether it was 60 years or less may be much harder to tell. Lava doesn’t do annual growth rings.
Theres a difference between a 60 year eruption and a 60 year overflow though. I think it probably had an active vent for at least 60 years, but that vent probably wasnt actively overflowing lava to the northeast coast the whole time. Its most based on the 2014 lava flowing the same direction and repeatedly stalling at 25 km from the vent, either the Kulaloloa lava was erupting faster or it was hotter. If ut was erupting faster though then the volume is too low for 60 years. I could believe the lava was hotter though, than Pu’u O’o, but I cant find a source saying it was for sure.
If I had to make a real guess, 60 years is probably the radiocarbon error range in the samples averaged, not necessarily the actual difference between the first and last flows. Although that does also sound like something HVO wouldnt make a mistake reporting either so I dont really know.
I doubt that that is the origin of the 60 years. As you say, it is too elementary. The accuracy of radio carbon dating is from the calibration curve, which itself is related to the variation of the natural 14C ratio over the years. That uncertainty may well be 60 years, but it would not be interpreted as a duration. Also, note that lava itself can’t be carbon dated. The dates come from trees burned by the lava, and give the age of that tree. Lava flows in fast succession don’t allow new trees to grow, so their carbonized trees only provide the age of the oldest flow
Apparently, not much different than that of Pu’u’ō’ō. They do argue, however, that a gentler slope might have contributed to the longevity and thickness of the lava flows (compared to the steeper southern slopes).
(from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S000925412100334X, image from Google images as the PDF is for pay)
In the “Phase 2” of the eruption at Pu’u’ō’ō, it had much higher concentrations of MgO than most of the Kualoloa flows, although it is likely it might’ve begun with a higher concentration of MgO in its earlier phases.
6.8% MgO is similar to the recent lava of summit eruptions since 2020, and the later lava of Pu’u O’o and most 2018 lava. It is likely because of a homogeneous magma chamber at the summit, with the summit lake of 2008-18 being a symptom of this, huge convection and temperature. Its pretty likely the same was true back in the 1400s.
Only thing, is again the 2014 flows. Those flowed in the same place as the Kulaloloa flows and couldnt go as far. Maybe 2014 was below average in effusion rate, but it doesnt really seem that was true in the first few months but it still stalled anyway. And that flow was also very narrow, Kulaloloa was wide, but still went the distance anyway. Its just really hard to see these flows being erupted at the same rate, even if it had 60 years.
The map posted by HVO indicates to me that during Kualoloa eruption there were multiple vents, although Kilauea Iki area was dominant. There were lava flows from chain of craters and Mauna Ulu area that entered the ocean like Mauna Ulu. Also the Pu’u O’o area must have erupted lava flows during this time span. Maybe the 60 years were a more or less continuous eruption of the summit (Kilauea Iki) with occasionally subordinated erupting vents on ERZ.
Also the 35 years of Pu’u O’o eruption had an accompanying summit eruption 2008-2018. Maybe the Kualoloa eruption was the opposite: A dominating eruption on the east wing of the Summit with a subordinated Pu’u O’o eruption which lasted shorter than Pu’u O’o 1983-2018.
https://pubs.usgs.gov/imap/i2759/
Found the downloads to the geological map of the summit area (published in 2003) and it shows the Pu’u Huluhulu as a separate yet earlier eruption than the Kualoloa eruption (at far right-habd side of map). Kokoolau on the other hand did produce an eruption later than that of the main eruption. Now, I also notice that there are fissures on the Kualoloa lava flow that are younger than it. I suspect they forgot about those flows in their post-Kualoloa eruption list…
Again, this is 2003 so a lot has likely changed…
Well, that post-Kualaloa flow map is leaving out the major 18th-century shield volcano of Heiheiahulu, the 18th flows of the MERZ, the Puu Kaliu and other late LERZ flows, or Puu Koae in the SWRZ. So it’s very incomplete, probably biased by Don’s view that after Aila’au/Kualoloa Kilauea shut off.
https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/ngm-bin/pdp/zui_viewer.pl?id=19599
Although I couldn’t download it, at least it’s lookable. This was in 1991 and things have changed but the Heiheiahulu shield is visible here and considered 1750 AD. Again, none of that on the previous maps of the Kualoloa flows. I think it is important to include all the post Kualoloa flows on the map, or perhaps mark them as pre-1790 flows…
Yes the lava has been buried along the middle ERZ, i do wonder if it might have even spilled over the crest to some degree but if that ever happened it was buried well by now.
The basically whole ERZ has been buried at least twice since the Kulaloloa eruption. Since 1955 to presumably ongoing now, and also in the 18th century. Its a bit hard to know exactly when the specific flows happened but Kaimu was getting lava flows into it around 1740. The lava labled 1750 is an a’a flow of this series that is actually buried further up by Heiheiahulu so that shield must be mostly or entirely younger. It was a major eruption so if it began in the late 1740s or early 1750s it would probably have only stopped in the 1770s, so not long before Cooks visit, although that was on the other side of the island so obviously not seen unless they sailed all around it and really looked close.
Heiheiahulu seems to have been different than Pu’u O’o though, its a’a early stage is actually bigger and it reaches the ocean very extensively. The lava shield itself is also quite steep, more than Mauna Ulu and much steeper than Kupaianaha or any of the other Pu’u O’o flank vents. It looks like the 2021 Fagradalsfjall cone but like 10x larger or more. So it was a continuous eruption but probably more of a lava geyser than a passive shield, except at the end. It also seems to have drained out downrift, making one of the ‘1790’ flows near Leilani Estates.
HVO have fixed the summit tiltmeters now, although I dont think my rough translation of 1 microrad = 1 million m3 of magma added or subtracted, is reliable anymore.
Will need to have another intrusion that gets given a stated volume to see how the tilt responds and what sort of ratio there might be.
I think the hard drop of UWE station visible before was probably it being disconnected. The new one is UWD, which is closer to the overlook area and the caldera, it could be more sensitive.
But assuming it to be the same as before then the summit has been filled with only 3 million m3 of magma in a month so the ERZ is probably getting all the supply now. The MOUNTS interferograms of Kilauea dont show significant deformation at the summit either, but those dont cover the ERZ at all for a fair comparison.
The ERZ connector has also started quaking again, under Kokoolau crater. The tiltmeters at Pu’u O’o are being tilted up to the northwest while the tiltmeter at Pauahi crarer (ESC) tilts up to the northeast. Some of the north-south element is flank sliding but the east-west indicates inflation ongoing between the two instruments. The tilt at Pu’u O’o doesnt seem to show deflation either there or further east, either.
I guess right now there is only a silent flow of magma from the summit to ERZ, depending on how much space there us to fill it could be quite boring for a bit longer than I thought, but then it all goes from 0 to 100 real fast, like it did in 1983. Its just how long that boring gap lasts that is the real question, might only be a week or it might be this time next year…
I hadn’t thought of that perspective, I just took the reported number of 60 continuous years as settled. But it would make sense that the eruption would initially be tube fed from Iki and ends with a series of blow-out eruptions in Lower Puna similar to Pu’u O’o in 2018. Each of these would have taken a chunk out of the Observatory Shield until Kaluapele began forming with the largest collapse happening in 1790. Oral traditions do seem to compress time. 400 years from now, people might think that Mauna Ulu, Pu’u O’o, 2018 Lower Puna and 2024 Naupu was one long eruption occurring over a period of 45 years I doubt scientists would be able to distinguish the difference using current dating techniques especially considering the petrology was relatively constant across the entire time period. We would naturally assume the eruption started high on the MERZ and progressed it’s way down to the site of the 2018 eruption. Speaking of which, do we have an excessively long name for it yet?…
I forgot to add the 1955 and 1960 flows and the small eruptions in the 1970s on the East Rift to the list. That makes 69 years of “continuous” eruptions from from the start of the MERZ at Mauna Ulu to the LERZ. I say “continuous” wearing our goggles that let us see 400 years into the future. What would be the total erupted volume erupted on the south flank of the ERZ compared to the Aila’au eruption on the north side of the ERZ? In 400 years, the gaps between these eruption sites would fill in covering a substantial portion of the volume making the current 69 year period look smaller than it actually is. I know science has to be conservative in its measurements but here at VC I think we can make logical inferences in order to make a reasonable conclusion as to what the volume actually is during our comparison of the two time periods.
White Smokers in Dead Sea and threat for Carst Craters: https://www.ufz.de/index.php?en=36336&webc_pm=43/2024
The White Smokers emit salty water with dense salt content. They are viewed as “an early warning indicator for sinkholes.”. Like Limestone salt sediments can as well do carst phenomena “by the dissolution of massive layers of salt. This forms giant cavities above which the ground can collapse at any time.”
A topic not immediately related to volcanics, but an example for dynamic geological processes, and in this case linked to the Jordan Graben formation.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CzPcJzf4V/
Close up views of Lewotobi and its new lava. Looks like the lava is either mafic or a very hot andesite, its much thinner and more black than the lava early in the year. No liquid lava directly visible though, but it probably looks very similar to the lava of fissure 17 at Kilauea in 2018. Lava dome is a poor word choice in my opinion.
I’m not sure if it is more fluid than last year since last year’s lava was broad but only as thick as trees in the area are tall, but it’s clearly more fluid than most of the old Lewotobi lavas. I would go with a strombolian cone and ponded lavas filling the crater, which might plug up the gas flow.
That’s Lewotolo not Lewotobi!
Yes thats correct, still quite fluid for this part of the world.
Interesting the start of the name, I cant find what it translates to. Most sources give translation of Laki-Laki to mean ‘husband’ and Gunung Api is just fire mountain or maybe literally just ‘volcano’ now. But Lewotobi doesnt translate to anything.
Indonesian is apparently quite easy to get a basic understanding of but hard to become fluent. That might be mostly because it uses the Latin script, though.
New post is up! A mystery, a riddle, an enigma. Confused? So was Churchill.
https://www.volcanocafe.org/the-pahala-swarm/
Icelanders love volcanoes.
Early voting for Tenerife Icelanders (RÚV, 18 Nov)
Iceland has an election happening in a week or so. I think it is fun that there are enough Icelanders on Tenerife to have a voting place! Hopefully Pico del Teide won’t erupt before they can cast their ballots.
I would guess it is people on holiday, trying to get away from Iceland’s dark beginning of winter!