Loading ...Here are the best USGS links on the Hawaii Volcano. Daily summary and updates of geologic activity are here:
https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/volcanoes/kilauea/status.html
The best pictures and videos can be found at the USGS photo and chronology page here:
https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/volcanoes/kilauea/multimedia_chronology.html
And if you are a real earthquake geek, you can watch the list grow at the local USGS ‘nearby seismicity’ page here.
My ham friend who is a field volcanologist here checked in this morning to the ‘net and gave us a report and answered a few questions. He tells me this earthquake swarm is handled by automation and algorithms that place the quake by a form of echolocation, and they don’t have as many sensors out in the field as they would like. But he says their location is somewhat imprecise unless a human reviews the data and fine tunes the exact location. The result is that this is a ‘scatter map’. The actual earthquake locations tend to be much more concentrated where the lava movement zones are in rather small areas. So he didn’t think this seemingly offshore swarm indicated any slippage of the lava shelf along the south shore of the island. He said it would be much larger earthquakes if the land shelf slipped. So I hope we don’t have anything larger than the 6.9 already encountered. Meanwhile the little 2.5 to 3 tremors continue to pump a little adrenaline when I feel them.
My little village of Pahoa has become a refugee center, with several hundred people in shelters at the gym and community center. The high school and highway intersection at the south end of town has become a media circus, refugee help center, and political grandstand for every local official and politician all the way up thru Governor and Congress critters. All from the government and here to help…. by telling people the cannot go any farther down the road nor return to their homes. Although they did let a limited number of residents back in to accessible areas of Leilani for a few hours to retrieve belongings from their homes.
It’s a media circus for local news crews and now national news. As I was waiting for my take-out order at a local bar & restaurant, the bartender came thru complaining about “those rude CBS reporters” who were told they couldn’t take their beers out into the parking lot. (“Oh, It’s OK. We’re just right here”)
No… it’s against the law to take alcoholic drinks thru the public doorway of a bar. The bartender cut them off and asked them to leave.
I had some thoughts of going out to the broadcast site to say hello to a few colleagues that I had worked with in the past, but the jammed traffic and crowds quickly changed my mind.
–Maya… hunkered down at the Quaking Volcano Ranch.