A rare fissure eruption began at Kilauea, Hawaii Saturday, fountaining lava up to 80 feet high. It was foreshadowed by swarm of earthquakes (in yellow) near the caldera of the Kilauea volcano in late February and the first 4 days of March. The earthquakes were caused by a series of shifts in the deep plumbing of the east rift zone that has been maintaining Kilauea's continuous eruption, centered at the Pu'u O'o crater, since 1983.
Photographs and images by Hawaii Volcano Observatory, USGS
The earthquakes colored in blue have occurred since the eruption began 2 days ago. They are caused primarily by collapses of the crater floors and shifts of the plumbing below the craters.
Saturday, March 5, a fissure opened up along the east rift zone connecting the main caldera of Kilauea with the caldera of the Pu'u O'o cone. The fissure began to erupt at the same time that the bottom of Kilauea's caldera collapsed and the bottom fell out of the Pu'u O'o crater.
The image shows deformation of the Kilauea caldera (labeled UWE) and the Pu'u O'o crater (labeled POC) by recording the change in tilt across the calderas.
The fissure first erupted in an area of lush native Hawaiian forest which contains endangered species of plants and birds.
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The rim of the Halema`uma`u pit crater, located on the southwest edge of the Kilauea caldera, had multiple small collapse events on March 3, 2011, before the fissure eruption started. Lava levels in the pit crater dropped and rose a and dropped again in multiple Deflation Inflation Deflation (DID) events. The events were caused by developing instabilities in the plumbing of the east rift zone that connects Kilauea to Pu'u O'o. Remote cameras captured the sound and fury of the collapse events of March 3rd.
On March 5, 2011 the lava drained out of Pu'u O'o, the bottom fell into the pit and the crater walls began to collapse. USGS geologists captured photos of the collapse of the rim of Pu'u O'o crater.
The rim collapsed because the bottom dropped out of the caldera. The walls fell into the deep pit. Red hot remnants of the former bottom of Pu'u O'o can be seen on the far wall.
On March 5, 2011, a fissure began erupting and the rift propagated down slope from the native forest into a bleak looking zone covered by volcanic tephra previously erupted from the Pu'u O'o cone. The last fissure eruption lasted just one day. This eruption has already surpassed the last one.
Later in the day, the rift closed up in the forest while raising up and cracking the tephra-covered-earth like a loaf of bread.
Photographs by USGS
A fountain of glowing red lava erupted above the grey tephra. A giant crack opened up downhill of the erupting fissure on March 6. In minutes much of the erupted lava cascaded over the edge of the newly formed cliff, back into the earth.
The USGS has updates through Monday, March 6.
Activity Summary for past 24 hours: There have been significant changes as Kilauea volcano continued to erupt at two locations: On the east rift zone, a fissure eruption that started Saturday afternoon continued intermittently at locations approximately 2-3.5 km WSW of Pu`u `O`o. Pu`u `O`o Crater and the TEB/Nov. 29 flows were inactive this morning. At the summit, the lava lake level remained deep below the rim of the vent inset within the east wall of Halema`uma`u Crater. Summit and east rift zone seismicity remained significantly elevated.
The final image is a USGS map from earlier earthquake swarm activity June 20, 2007 in the same area. The swarm outlines the east rift zone where the lava flows from Kilauea to Pu'u O'o. The present fissure eruption is along the fracture zone located on the map between the Pu'u O'o crater and the Napau crater.