Loading ...…or is that an Oxymoron? 🙂
What I mean is that we have reached a stable plateau in volcanic activity here. The fountains and flow to the sea are stable now, and the flow continues to drain the magma from the lower rift zone. Now we just keep a wary eye on the lava flow in case it breaks out in a new direction… but it has a well established river path. How long this will continue is anyones guess… but for now the pattern is stable.
The summit crater is cycling with a steam explosion about every day. The poor folks in nearby volcano village are subject to 3 magnitude jolts at the rate of several per hour sometimes all night long, before a steam explosion registers a 5.5 jolt locally. These are very shallow quakes caused by the deflation and subsidence of the crater. It is collapsing inward on itself since the lava lake drained away inside. Now the ‘steam cannon’ goes off about every day as rocks fall into the ‘firing chamber’ below. Interestingly, these jarring local quakes cannot be felt 10 miles away… they are that shallow and local. The hole in the caldera floor is getting bigger, and there are rings of cracks and slumping surrounding the Halemaumau crater area. How long this will continue is anyones guess… but for now the pattern is stable. The fear is that a large rockfall collapse could really plug the cannon for a much bigger explosion and ash cloud. But still nothing near Mt. St. Helens… strictly a shallow crater explosion here. I’m more than 20 miles away from that crater, so it does not affect me.
So life on the volcano has become boring, but watchful for me.