Earthquake rocks Kilauea summit; lava lake within view

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Pele is making her presence known today at the Kilauea summit.

Pele is making her presence known today at the Kilauea summit.

Spattering within the lava lake at Halema‘uma‘u crater became visible Tuesday and an earthquake at the summit rocked the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory today.

The 3.7-magnitude earthquake struck at a shallow depth of 1.8 miles at 12:17 p.m. It occurred just 3.2 miles southeast of the summit.

That was followed by a 3.0-magnitude aftershock at 1:12 p.m.

HVO spokeswoman Janet Babb said the quakes had no immediate effect on the summit lake, which still was producing visible spatter today.

The lava lake was 66 feet below the crater rim as of this morning.