Nature is Cyclic

The last Saturday of September (the 26th) was a pretty spectacular day for Pele and Halema`uma`u, but I got so caught up in other things that I failed to update my captivated readers to let y'all know what was going on.

Here's the deal:
The volcano is constantly uplifting and subsiding - I think of it as breathing - and this motion is reflected in the tilt deformation stations at the summit (and at Pu`u O`o). When there's a distinct change in deformation we define it as a DI (deflation-inflation) event.

On Saturday (the 26th) there was a prolonged and exaggerated DI event where the lava lake level beneath the crust dropped for an unusually long period of time, so much so that the hardened crust was left hanging - literally - and crashed down to the surface of the lava. The collapse produced a robust brown ashy plume, and it was the largest event that has happened since October of last year.

The next cool thing to happen was the cyclic filling and draining of the lava lake that was suddenly and violently exposed to the air and unprotected by a cool crust. The cycle was on the order of a few hours, although in the past it has been as fast as 3 minutes! Click on this link to see the cyclic draining/filling of the lava lake.

On Friday night Katie and I were able to go out to the caldera (with a qualified HVO scientist, of course) to view the lava pond for ourselves. Unfortunately it wasn't quite as exciting as other nights from last week because we caught it during the end of the draining/beginning of the filling state so there was more bad gas than usual and the lake level was lower. I also couldn't get any good pictures because of the lighting. Still, I enjoyed it, as always.

The lake disappeared (aka drained away) on Saturday morning and was gone until Monday morning. Maybe it had something to do with the full moon?