Hawaii News

 

An elevated seismic unrest has been monitored and is now in progress at the volcano's summit region.

The number of earthquakes has increased from about 20 events per day to over 40 per day over the past week. The earthquake swarm intensified on 13 August by reaching its peak so far as 100 quakes occurred that day, of which M 4.3 event was widely felt on the Island of Hawaiʻi. Although most of earthquakes didn't exceed M 2.0, their location has been detected at shallow depths between 0-2 km beneath Kaluapele (Kīlauea caldera, including Halemaʻumaʻu). They arranged in a northeast linear area towards the Iki crater and along the southern end of the caldera.

The ongoing unrest found in highly elevated ground deformation rates, but it returned back to steady-state levels yesterday.

This is likely reflecting continued magma accumulation, intrusion and migration under the summit, supported also by a fluctuating deformation of the surface. Furthermore, earthquakes may pose the main indicator of the presence of magma at shallow levels, another tell-tale sign of a potential eruption. However, there is no sign of an imminent explosion so far.

The alert status for the volcano remains at "Yellow".

Source: Hawaiian Volcano Observatory volcano activity update 15 August 2023