Subscribe Now
Choose a package that suits your preferences.
Start Free Account
Get access to 7 premium stories every month for FREE!
Already a Subscriber?
Current print subscriber? Activate your complimentary Digital account.
This time-lapse video shows Halema‘uma‘u crater and Kilauea caldera in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park as seen from the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. It includes roughly one image for every day between April 14, 2018, and July 11, 2018.
The lava lake is visible early in the video, with overflows onto the caldera floor on April 23, but the lake vanishes from sight in early May as pressure in the summit magma reservoir decreases.
Gas and ash plumes associated with explosive activity are visible in May.
Large-scale subsidence of the caldera floor around Halema‘uma‘u begins at the end of May and continues to the present. The volume of Halema‘uma‘u is now more than seven times larger than it was before the onset of this subsidence.