We want to hear what you think about this article. This new eruption has made it quite clear to me that, yes, we were walking over lots of invisible lava tubes.” “One of our biggest fears out there was falling into these empty lava tubes if the ground collapsed.

“There were numerous lava tubes that were invisible beneath us,” Hulett said. Subsequent imagery and video showed fissures at the. local time when webcams showed a glow in the Halemaumau crater in Kilauea’s summit caldera. For now, the most recent eruption is 'within a closed area' of Hawaiis Volcanoes National Park, the USGS said, and 'there are no indications of activity migrating' out of the summit. “It was hard to get around because the ground was folded, twisted, and kept shattering.”Īlthough it was important to avoid the fresh lava, the real danger lay in what wasn’t visible. The eruption was detected around 4:44 a.m. Hulett and his friend, Hawaiian resident Lance Page, hiked six miles into Kīlauea’s lava field, where the surface layer of fresh lava is very delicate-“more the consistency of snow than rock,” Hulett told The Atlantic. It was a dangerous project, the extent of which Hulett wouldn’t become aware until nearly a year later. student-turned-filmmaker Tyler Hulett ventured across Kīlauea to film Dawn of Fire, a short compilation of photographs that, when edited together and sped up, depicts the flow of a lava river. Kīlauea’s slow-motion flow makes it the perfect candidate for time-lapse photography. Mauna Loa Trail, the summit cabin and wilderness area above Red Hill Cabin remain closed due to hazards from the recent eruption. But Kīlauea’s prominence in the recent news cycle is deceiving in reality, the volcano has been insidiously erupting for 35 years.

This is currently the case in Hawaii, where Kīlauea, a shield volcano, is releasing a ponderous lava flow that is wreaking havoc on local communities and causing mass evacuations. Rather, volcanic eruptions can be disasters in slow motion. Officials with the US Geological Survey confirmed Wednesday that an eruption has begun in Kilauea volcano ’s Halemaumau crater at the volcano’s summit. It last erupted in 1984.A volcanic eruption is often not the explosive, flash-flood-of-lava affair that persists in the popular imagination, largely thanks to the notorious event at Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. A timelapse video has revealed the moments leading up to the recent eruption of one of the most active volcanos on Earth is erupting on Hawaii ’s Big Island. Lava flowed from Mauna Loa, the world’s largest active volcano, a week after it erupted for the first time since 1984. Mauna Loa rises 13,679 feet (4,169 meters) above the Pacific Ocean, part of a chain of volcanoes that formed the islands of Hawaii. On flatter ground, lava flows spread out and 'inflate' - creating individual lobes that can advance quickly and then stall. The USGS says many variables influence exactly where the lava will move and at what speed. The sight has attracted visitors to the 'once in a lifetime' spectacle. Over the past day, it reached a flatter area and slowed significantly, moving at just. Talmadge Magno, administrator of Hawaii County's Civil Defense Agency, told reporters this week that if lava flows onto the highway it would likely take the federal government a few months to get it passable again once the flows halt.Īfter the eruption on Sunday, the lava initially moved quickly down steep slopes.

If the main highway is cut off, Hawaii county officials say, traffic will be forced onto coastal roads, crowding them and adding hours onto a trip from Hilo, the largest city on the Big Island, to Kona, a tourist magnet, which takes just 90 minutes on the Daniel K. Inouye Highway, also known as Saddle Road, and could possibly reach it in a week.īut the USGS also said that because of the unpredictable nature of lava flows, it's 'difficult to estimate when or if the flow will impact' the highway, which is the island's main east- west road. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory reported Friday that the main front of the lava flow was 3.2 miles (5.2 kilometers) away from the Daniel K. Dec 2 (Reuters) - The lava flowing from Hawaii's Mauna Loa, which is the world's largest active volcano and erupted this week, is edging closer to the Big Island's main highway.

Video hawaii recent volcano eruption