Thermal imaging aids in tracking flows from Kilauea
This thermal image looks northeast from Puu Oo and shows how the subsurface lava tubes feeding the active breakouts on the Kahaualea 2 flow are clearly visible as lines of slightly higher temperatures on the surface. At the bottom of the image, the lava tube coming from Puu Oo forks, with the eastern branch supplying lava to the main area of active breakouts (3 miles northeast of Puu Oo) and the western branch feeding a small area of breakouts about 1.2 miles north of Puu Oo.
Kilauea Volcano’s Kahaualea 2 lava flow continues to burn through forest, sending up plumes of smoke, but scientists can see more activity through thermal imaging.
The flow, fed by the northeast spatter cone in the Puu Oo vent, extends 4.5 miles to the north but is most active about 3 miles northeast of Puu Oo.
Between Nov. 27 and Friday, the flow advanced 920 feet, according to the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.
A thermal image taken Friday shows the main area of activity northeast of Puu Oo, a smaller breakout north of Puu Oo, and two lava tubes.
A fissure eruption on the upper east flank of Puu Oo on Sept. 21, 2011, fed what became known as the Peace Day flow, which advanced southeast through the abandoned Royal Gardens subdivision to the ocean inside Hawaii Volcanoes National Park in early December 2011. The flows stalled and re-entered the ocean starting on Nov. 24, 2012, until activity started to decline and the ocean entry stopped in Aug. 20.
The flow was dead by early November.
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The Kahaualea flow, which started at the northeast edge of the Puu Oo crater floor in mid-January, was dead by late April, but a new flow, Kahaualea 2, became active in the same area in early May.
