Loading ...Locally, it is known as “Pele’s Hair” and consists of long fine strands of volcanic glass. It takes a specially thin, liquid lava that is ejected from a vent with a lot of gas pressure that draws the lava droplets out long and thin into glass strands. It is rather rare as it takes special conditions to create it, but yes, it is a real phenomenon. ANY volcanic dust is not good to breath…. whether rock ash or glass… you don’t want it in your lungs. Dust masks are the order of the day if one is in an ashfall area. Many people in Volcano village have had open top water catchment tanks for years. Now they are all looking for tarps to cover the tanks in case of ash fall.
One of our ham radio operators is also the Fire Dept. helicopter pilot who regularly patrols the volcano for the county and civil defense. He gives us ham radio operators updates after the flights on what he sees. Nice to have ‘source eyes’ in the air. Last night hams in Pahoa village, 5 miles upwind of the fissures, reported the volcano could be heard roaring like distant thunder… continuously. They could see the red glow in the sky also. I was in Hilo town for the weekend so I missed it.
Again, for USGS updates on the volcano daily:
https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/volcanoes/kilauea/status.html
And all the spectacular pictures are from the USGS media page:
https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/volcanoes/kilauea/multimedia_chronology.html
Rock & Roll !