Hawaii Questions

Robert asked: How often do the volcanoes erupt in Hawaii?

The Kilauea volcano has a constant flow of lava. At times it has powerful eruptions, but it has had a constant flow for thousands of years.

Mauna Loa volcano is the largest volcano on earth. Mauna Loa also has a constant flow of lava, it is also the newest of the Hawaii Volcanos being only about 600,000 to 1,000,000 years old.

Hualalai is the third youngest and third-most historically active volcano on the Island of Hawai`i. Six different vents erupted lava between the late 1700s and 1801, two of which generated lava flows that poured into the sea on the west coast of the island. The Keahole Airport, located only 11 km north of Kailua-Kona, is built atop the larger flow.

Though Hualalai is not nearly as active as Mauna Loa or Kilauea, our recent geologic mapping of the volcano shows that 80 percent of Hualalai’s surface has been covered by lava flows in the past 5,000 years. In the past few decades, when most of the resorts, homes, and commercial buildings were built on the flanks of Hualalai, earthquake activity beneath the volcano has been low. In 1929, however, an intense swarm of earthquakes lasting more than a month was most likely caused by magma rising to near the surface. For these reasons, Hualalai is considered a potentially dangerous volcano that is likely to erupt again in the next 100 years.

East Maui, or [tagHaleakala Volcano[/tag] has witnessed at least ten eruptions in the past 1,000 years, and numerous eruptions have occurred there in the past 10,000 years. Thus, East Maui’s long eruptive history and recent activity indicate that the volcano will erupt in the future.

Haleakala National Park is the most visited part of East Maui. The Hawaiian name Hale-a-ka-la (lit., house of the sun), is now nearly synonymous with the entire shield of East Maui volcano. Early Hawaiians, however, applied the name only to the summit area, the site where the demigod Maui snared the sun and forced it to slow its journey across the sky.

Lo`ihi Seamount is an active volcano built on the seafloor south of Kilauea about 30 km from shore. The seamount rises to 969 m below sea level and generates frequent earthquake swarms, the most intense of which occurred in 1996. An eruption at Lo`ihi has yet to be observed, but scientists from the University of Hawai`i have recently made many submersible dives to the volcano and deployed instruments on its summit to study Lo`ihi in much greater detail.

The summit of Lo`ihi is marked by a caldera-like depression 2.8 km wide and 3.7 km long. Three collapse pits or craters occupy the southern part of the caldera; the most recent pit formed during an intense earthquake swarm in July-August 1996. Named Pele’s Pit, the new crater is about 600 m in diameter and its bottom is 300 m below the previous surface!

You can read more about Hawaii Volcanos at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.

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