Kīlauea Update, Sunday, August 5, 2018. No...You may NOT begin to celebrate!

be outside...pay attention       noho i waho...a maliu

Or if cannot, be attentive to tools at your disposal:  websites, webcams, photos, graphs, maps, and, most importantly the knowledge held in the space between your ears, and in your naʻau, your gut.

We have entered a distinctly different phase of our eruption.  Pelehonuamea is doing what she has done for centuries, for millenia...start, stop, pause, there, here, maʻō, maʻaneʻi.  She knows what sheʻs doing.  We mortals are clueless.  Said it before...we can track, analyze, collect all the data we want, but try figure out what the next minute, hour, days hold...good luck.

It bears repeating:  Study history.  Go read the papers Iʻve posted and others you find, study eruptions of the past, or at least find out solid information from those who know and understand.  And no, Social Media is not the best source.  But some on there are apparently very akamai.  Just gotta figure out who.

I was looking at Hawaii Tracker yesterday.  GO!  Lots of excellent photos and video.  And a few good comments in the vein of "Donʻt count your chickens before theyʻre hatched".

Hawaii Tracker

Ikaika Marzo posted a video there just before 6a today.  GoLook.  We can see that Pele is still flowing into the Pacific, tussling with her older sister Nāmakaokahaʻi.  Ikaika said that pele is right by Elevators, a surf spot at Pohoiki.

Hereʻs a thing:  Even if Fissure 8 stops, or is greatly diminished, the inside of kahawai pele is still hot and molten.  Gravity will continue to pull the flow ma kai.  Some of the ʻaʻā is 60 feet or more thick.  Thatʻs a lot of mass, and will take months or years to cool completely.  Fissure 8 and the 8-mile-long or so kahawai pele (the lava channel) contain a LOT of pele.  

Stop.  Breathe.  Go have Brunch.  She may not be pau yet.  As long as there is red, as long as pōhaku (rocks) move, as long as uahi ʻawa and noeuahi linger, as long as there are ʻōlaʻi, as long as there is the possibility, however remote, that Sheʻll wake from her nap, the eruption is not over.

And when Pele rests, whenever and for however long that is, we must rethink our actions, our perceptions, our views of the world.  Donʻt expect that everything will return to "Normal".  It wonʻt.  And it shouldnʻt.  If we blithely go on as if nothing happened, rebuilding roads, rebuilding homes, replanting farms, rebuilding our lives as if nothing happened in the last three months to cause us to rethink our priorities, then we have a problem.  And yes, thatʻs the collective, the Royal, "We".  We must not return to the more More MORE mentality that seems to infect many.  THINK:  Quality of Life, Sustʻāinability [thanks cn], Limits.  

Sustʻāinability Tee: Hawaiian Force

And Craigʻs design commemorating Pele and her current works:

E Pele E Tee: Hawaiian Force

Not everyone can or should have everything NOW.  Cannot.  When places exceed their Carrying Capacity, and resources are irreversibly, irreparably damaged or destroyed, we simply gotta Stop and Reassess. 

OK, Bob...Move on...

Starting up here at Kaluapele.  Our ʻōlaʻi.  All, then Last Two Days:

Please note, that for now, for now...Red is nearly missing.  Red=Last 2 Hours

And please, please remember that Kaluapele has undergone a renovation, the pūʻiwa-ness of which we have not seen in our lifetimes.  Itʻll take a long while to heal.  And the gate to the Park simply cannot and must not be thrown open so life can continue as it was.  Cannot.

Pele is saying to the National Park Service:  You folks had this place for 100 Years, you had a nice party in 2016, now Iʻm taking it back.  Staff eligible for retirement must retire.  They must.  A new, visionary, inclusive Team with abiding aloha, and broad and intimate knowledge of the Park and its resources must meet, talk, share, learn from one another, and design our collective future.  Like patting a good dog on the head, too often we pay lip service to kūpuna and to mākua, those with decades of knowledge, experiences, and who hold deep aloha for place, and, after meeting, we send them on their way.  Please, no longer.

At the forefront of any discussion must be alohaʻāinaaloha.  Itʻs the aloha we share for the ʻāina, and the ʻāina for which we have great aloha. If we cannot do that, openly, inclusively and without ego, we are doomed to fail.

ONE.  One.  Little.  Red.  Dot.  See it?  But...Do Not become complacent!

So here are graphs of Tilt, and my interpretations of them:
  
I observe.  I am not a seismologist or a geophysicist.  Again, up is Inflation (more magma coming in), and down is Deflation (magma leaving).  Flat is steady and even.  No Change.

Below, Uēkāhuna, at the summit, this morning at 534a.  

We posted and noted yesterday about sensingseeing flatness.  After three months of a downhill run.  And what we see below, I think, is just that:  What we see below.  ʻŌlaʻi have diminished in numbers perhaps because Pele, beneath the floor of Kaluapele, has slowed her descent, and Hiʻiaka has concurrently slowed her digging, and those consequent adjustments and settling motions have slowed too.  The spikes are M3ish earthquakes.

Down on the East Rift Zone at Puʻuʻōʻō, under which pele passes on her way to Keahialaka:

The first is what Tilt at Puʻuʻōʻō looked like in late June.  This pattern continued till Friday or so.  Pretty flattish.  Big spike = exploquake.

Then this, also from this morning at 534a, at Puʻuʻōʻō.  Note that the decline started on Friday sometime.  Again, line going down = magma leaving system and likely not being replenished.  Flattish since just after 6p yesterday.

Flattish.  I like flattish.  Some may think that boring, but right now, in these times, I Vote for Flattish.  At least with my understanding, however flawed it might be, of whatʻs going on.

And yes, I find myself holding my breath.  Then willing myself to exhale.  Slowly.  Because during my 40+ years of paying attention to these things, weʻve seen events take unexpected turns.  And predictions that proved fruitless.  And weʻve mostly learned to try, as difficult as it can be at times, to simply Let Her Be and Pay Attention.

Hereʻs the HVO Update, posted yesterday at 1036p, very well written and succinct.

HVO Update, SAT, August 4, 2018, 1036p

A photo of the kahawai pele, from HVO yesterday, Saturday, August 4, 2018, in the morning.  Note the exposed banks of the stream, and the chunky appearance of the surface.  And the thinnish cloud of uahi ʻawa (fume) emanating from F8.

Then from Mr Durginʻs cam this morning.  When Sheʻs really active, the orange would be big, bright and white.  But the orange, to me, shows that Sheʻs still at home.

Time to tentatively and slowly exhale.  Stay tuned...

As always, with aloha,

BobbyC