We love maps.
We love imagery.
We love work breaks.
We hope you like them as well!
If you are fascinated by science and the function of the earth’s inner core and volcanoes, you’ll love the image we’re sharing with you this month. You can even watch the subject of this month’s image live online.
For this month’s Imagery Work Break, we have a high-off nadir (meaning the satellite’s camera was tilted to the side, not straight down, when it collected data) 71-centimeter GeoEye-1 image taken from high above looking down at the active eruption of Mount Kilauea in Hawaii on June 9, 2023. Kilauea ranks among the world’s most active volcanoes, according to the United State Geological Survey. The volcano is between 210,000 and 280,000 years old and grew above sea level about 100,000 years ago. Since the islands were settled, it has been the most active of the five volcanoes that together form the Hawaiian Islands. On June 5, 2023, an explosion happened at the summit of the Kilauea volcano with a gas plume that rose around 1,000 feet above the ground, according to the USGS. It remained active until June 19, 2023. Kilauea’s eruption from January 3, 1983 to 2018 was its longest period of activity, as well as one of the longest eruptions documented on Earth.
Topographically, Kilauea appears as only a spot on the southeastern edge of Mauna Loa, so for many years, Kilauea was thought to be a satellite of a giant neighboring volcano and not a separate one. However, research done during the past few decades shows that Kilauea has its own magma-plumbing system, extending to the surface from more than 60-km deep in the earth. Since 1952, Kilauea has erupted dozens of times. From 1983 to 2018, eruptive activity was nearly continuous along the volcano’s East Rift Zone. At the summit, a vent within Halema‘uma‘u hosted an active lava pond and vigorous gas plume from 2008 to 2018. In 2018, the decades-long continuous activity on the East Rift Zone ended and the summit lava lake drained following an intrusion into, and eruption from, Kilauea’s lower East Rift Zone. Several summit eruptions since December 2020 created lava lakes within Halema‘uma‘u crater, which have been slowly filling the collapsed area that formed in 2018.
Kilauea also is the home of Pele, the Hawaiian volcano goddess. Hawaiian chants and oral traditions speak of eruptions fomented by an angry Pele before the first European, the missionary Rev. William Ellis, saw the summit in 1823. The caldera was the site of nearly continuous activity during the 19th Century and the early part of the 20th Century.
If you’re fascinated by what you’ve learned about this volcano and the image we’ve shared, be sure and check out the live feed above to monitor its activity yourself.
Have a great rest of your workday! 😊
(Image Courtesy: Maxar. Processed by Apollo Mapping for improved color accuracy and clarity.)
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