October 16, 2018 Halemaumau!!!
We got our first close up look at the newly remodeled Halemaumau Crater at Kilauea’s summit this morning… and she is absolutely stunning! Halemaumau has grown to over a mile wide… and is somewhere in the neighborhood of 15-hundred feet deep. There is no active lava within the enormous crater, but plenty of steam, huge cracks and roads destroyed in the caldera. There is so much change in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, it’s often hard to get your bearings. Halemaumau’s parking lot is gone, as is a half mile of the chain of craters road once used to access the vent.
It is now about two months since the eruption went into a pause… or lull, as scientists call it. And although the USGS stated last recently that lava is unlikely to erupt anytime soon, they have detected lava moving back into the system. Some earthquakes have occurred recently, but there is still a general lack of seismicity both at the summit and the lower east rift zone.
A solo Halloween Ducky joined us today as Leilani was MIA (foul play is suspected at this spooky time of year). Bruce Omori and I enjoyed the expertise of Paradise Helicopters’ pilot Sean Regehr, as he guided us stealthily around Kilauea Caldera. Mahalo Paradise Helicopters and Sean… you guys no ka oi!
Paradise Helicopters and Bruce Omori at Extreme Exposure