Kīlauea Update, Sunday, July 15, 2018, GeoMaps and Thermal Images, and...spareribs!

And...a very good, long-time friend turned 60 last Thursday.  I finally remembered to call her yesterday...you know how it is...especially when I rely on handwritten notes on paper calendars (remember those?).  Anyway, and I was ecstatically thrilled to learn that she went Tahiti for two weeks!  Good.  For.  Her.  !!!  And this month in French Polynesia is "Heiva i Tahiti" in Papeʻete, which I think used to be called Tahiti Fete.  Maybe.  All in celebration, originally, of yesterdays Bastille Day.  

And what does Tahiti have to do with anything, you might wonder?  It has everything to do with living our lives to the fullest, despite what-la is going on around us.  Life actually does go on.  No one is indispensable.  Including me.  Kind of a late start writing today.  When we think an exploquake will/might happen when weʻre supposed to be sleeping, slumber is disturbingly irregular.  Like last night.  I slept OK, but the precursor M3ʻs tend to be dreamfelt.  And I awoke during the M5.2 at 326a.  Interestingly, it was .9mi deep.  Most of the others so far have been quite shallow:  .2mi or so... An evolving hmmmmmm

And then Iʻm making spareribs for dinner.  That takes a bit of time.  And...

Here we are.  Oia mau nō-ing.  Pelehonuamea continues working as she has.  Down at Keahialaka, the pele at Fissure 8 seems to be not as constant as it has been.

A couple PGcam shots from today.  The first at 646a maybe shows, if it happened, the tail end of the anticipated surge 2 hours after the exploquake.  That extra brightness at the vent and the upper channel, and the kahawai pele (lava river) appears to be full.

And then, at 11a, maybe the kahawai pele has lowered a little?  Exposing banks?

These are reminders that Pele is, if nothing else, dynamic.  Always changing and often surprising.  As Iʻve said before, we must not become complacent.  We must not allow ourselves to think "What you see is what you get", because when we do, the next minute weʻll see something entirely different.

Like this thermal image of the ma kai flow field from yesterday.  So now the main channel down there is on the ma uka side of Waiapele (Kapoho Crater), and pele heads ever southwest.  Toward Pohoiki.  We can pray, and nonono! all we want, and yes, if Pohoiki goes we will be seriously bummed.  But what you going do?

And just over a week ago, the scene was completely different.

And up here at Kaluapele, Subsidence Happens.  Still.  What Iʻve come to call the Northeast Bay (for the time being) continues to sink.  The cracks on the caldera floor to the left of the new pali are widening.  And the aroma of cooking spareribs wafts upstairs.

Finally, today, if youʻre interested, some extra reading and perusing.  Here are links to the 2003 Geologic Map of the summit region of Kīlauea and an accompanying pamphlet.  Pretty sure Iʻve shared them before, but it does bear repeating...Go Look.  The map, by Tina Neal and Jack Lockwood is chock full of info and geonerd details.  As always, questions are welcome.  And, because of its size, the map is best viewed, of course, on a desktop monitor.

2003 Kīlauea Summit GeoMap Pamphlet

2003 Kīlauea Summit GeoMap #i2759

On with the day!  NOTE that Iʻll be there and here this week, so posts may be erratic.

As always, with aloha,

BobbyC
maniniowali@gmail.com