Hawaiian Volcano Update: Kīlauea Starts to Stir with Small Quake Flurries
This past week, Kīlauea's south caldera has hosted two small flurries of earthquakes, another sign of its progression back to a state of unrest along with its continuing inflation. The first flurry from July 21 to 23 comprised roughly 150 events highlighted by a M2.7 and a M2.4, while another sequence since July 26 is up to 50 events highlighted by a M2.3. Magma is still filling the volcano, pressurizing and now beginning to inject into its summit storage web on an episodic basis. The next step in escalation would be more frequent quake flurries accompanying injections, building to the point where the background seismicity is noticeably elevated. We still have a ways to go before reaching that point, but are moving forward considering the lack of significant seismicity the week before last.
Notably, the signals of volcanic build-up are still bounded within Kīlauea's summit region, with no significant changes reported by the USGS on either of the volcano's rift zones. Gas remains the greatest current threat to people from the volcano, even at its current background emissions of ~115 tonnes/day measured on July 22.
A final volume of 4.2 billion gallons or 15.9 million cubic meters has been reported for the June 7-19, 2023 eruption, resulting in a rise in the crater floor of 36 ft or 11 m. This makes it the smallest in volume and shortest in duration of the 4 summit eruptions since 2020, and the first since 2020 to have a shorter duration than its prior repose.
Maunaloa remains quiet on its surface as magma continues the normal process of refilling its summit reservoir, with no significant changes to report.
Our live presentation reviews the recent changes using monitoring data, imagery and reports courtesy of the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, along with a few of our own preparation. We annotate the presentation on-screen and discuss live viewer questions as usual, as well as this week's Volcano Watch article on using ocean noise to monitor volcanoes.
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