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From: bob@uhmanoa.ics.hawaii.edu (Bob Cunningham)
Newsgroups: sci.misc
Subject: Re: it may be "pau hana" time at Kilauea
Message-ID: <1817@uhccux.UUCP>
Date: 4 May 88 17:31:36 GMT
References: <1799@uhccux.UUCP>
Sender: news@uhccux.UUCP
Reply-To: bob@uhmanoa.UUCP (Bob Cunningham)
Organization: Hawaii Institute of Geophysics
Lines: 26

Famous last words....

Kilauea has started up again.  The new activity is officially "Phase 49"
of the eruption.

The first indication of renewed activity was data from tiltmeter
instrumentation on the weekend indicating that the summit of the
volcano was beginning to deflate.  This has become a reliable
indication that magma is flowing in considerable volume from the
storage chamber under the summit down to the rift zone.

On Monday, a commercial helicopter pilot spotted that the Kupaianaha
lava pond surface was rising by a hundred feet or more.  Later in the
day the lava pond filled up and began spilling out.

Apparently the drainage tube at the south end of the pond that up until
last week carried lava to the sea through the underground lava tube
system is now blocked.

So, lava began seeping out of the base of the former flows around the
lava pond at six places, and is beginning to spread further on the
surface in that area.


Bob Cunningham
bob@loihi.hig.hawaii.edu