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Hawaii News

Kilauea lava heading toward Royal Gardens, ocean

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USGS / HAWAIIAN VOLCANO OBSERVATORY

The lava flow from the east vent of Puu Oo was 2.7 miles long Thursday, in this photo looking downslope. The Pulama Pali is in the middle distance about 1.2 miles farther downslope. The coastal plain and ocean are in the far distance.

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USGS / HAWAIIAN VOLCANO OBSERVATORY

Several vents have opened on Puu Oo’s northeast flank since December. A spatter cone grew over one of the vents in mid-May and is visible at the center of the photo emitting bluish fume. In recent weeks a vent opened upslope from (to the left of) the spatter cone, revealing bright incandescence. The northeast edge of Puu Oo’s crater, filled with white fume, is to the left of this vent.

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USGS / HAWAIIAN VOLCANO OBSERVATORY

This view is of the front of the active lava flow, looking upslope. Puu Oo is partly obscured in the clouds at upper left. Most surface activity on the advancing flow is actually where the flow widens, upslope of the flow front.

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USGS / HAWAIIAN VOLCANO OBSERVATORY

An aerial view shows an open vent, a small window into a large, hot cavity beneath Puu Oo’s northeast flank. Inside, streams of lava from an unseen source (or sources) closer to the crater rim (visible at lower right) are cascading toward the upper left into unknown depths. This view, looking almost straight down, shows the surface of one of these lava streams through the open vent. The ground around this entire area is sunken, corroded and unstable, and could someday collapse to form a pit.

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USGS / HAWAIIAN VOLCANO OBSERVATORY

The lava stream was flowing toward the photographer in this photo of a skylight taken Thursday. Higher lava levels are preserved in the shelflike protrusions on the darker orange wall to the left.

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USGS / HAWAIIAN VOLCANO OBSERVATORY

The uppermost part of a nascent lava tube has several skylights, which reveal the lava stream within the flow, like capillaries beneath the skin. This is the uppermost skylight, just downstream from where the lava broke out from the east flank of Puu Oo on May 24.