(BIVN) – The Volcano Alert Level for Kilauea remains at WATCH, as scientists are keeping a close eye on recent changes to see if they will lead to altered eruptive behavior at the Hawaiʻi island volcano.
The USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory recorded an apparent cell phone video during a recent summit flyover and posted it to social media. On the right side of the video (below) is a recent Observatory thermal image map, showing the location of recent lava flows from new vents on the crater wall.
As we reported in previous videos, the summit area is highly pressurized, and tilt patterns are irregular. Inflation models can no longer be used to predict when the next lava fountain episode will occur. Its possible we have seen the last high fountain in this eruption, which began in December 2024.
A synthesized text-to-video voiceover was used in the narration for this story. Video courtesy the USGS.
Since our last update, a sixth vent opened on the floor of the crater. This seemed to coincide with a switch to summit deflation, which switched back to inflation Thursday night. These new vents have not showed any signs of activity in the past 24 hours.
The established vent complex continues to produce strong glow and flames, and occasional spatter. A partial collapse of the north vent spatter cone was captured a few night ago.
In a recent Volcano Watch article, the Observatory wrote that it is too soon to know for sure whether fountaining has ended at the summit, and too soon to know if the new vents that have opened will persist.
The article goes on to say earthquake activity has risen slightly around the summit, but there has been no anomalous deformation or seismic activity in the East or Southwest Rift-zone that would indicate activity is moving out of the summit-area.
Scientists say they are keeping a close eye on Kīlauea, tracking monitoring data to see if recent changes develop further at the summit.
