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James P. Kauahikaua

Publications and source records attributed to James P. Kauahikaua.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
USGS2016

The 2014 annual report for the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory

Introduction This report summarizes team activities and findings of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory during the year 2014 in geology, geodesy, seismicity, and gas geochemistry. The eruption of Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō continued into its 32nd year with flows active to the northeast of the vent. One of them, the June 27th lava flow, named for the date in 2014 that the flow started, advanced far and fast enough to threaten the town of Pāhoa and Highway 130 in the Puna District of the Island of Hawai‘i. In response, the alert level for Kīlauea was elevated from WATCH to WARNING on September 4, followed by the declaration of a State Disaster on September 5 and a National Disaster on November 3. During 2014, renewed inflation and increased seismicity was detected beneath the summit and upper west flank of Mauna Loa. Although above background, the frequency and magnitude of the earthquakes remained at such low levels that, by year’s end, the four-tier alert level code for Mauna Loa remained at its lowest level—NORMAL. These changes were discussed in several Volcano Watch articles. Hualālai, Haleakalā, Mauna Kea, and Lo‘īhi showed no signs of unrest during the year.

Scientific Investigations Report↗
USGS2016

The 2014-2015 Pāhoa lava flow crisis at Kīlauea Volcano, Hawai‘i: Disaster avoided and lessons learned

Lava flow crises are nothing new on the Island of Hawai‘i, where their destructive force has been demonstrated repeatedly over the past several hundred years. The 2014–2015 Pāhoa lava flow crisis, however, was unique in terms of its societal impact and volcanological characteristics. Despite low effusion rates, a long-lived lava flow whose extent reached 20 km (the longest at Kīlauea Volcano in the past several hundred years) was poised for months to impact thousands of people, although direct impacts were ultimately minor (thus far). Careful observation of the flow reaffirmed and expanded knowledge of the processes associated with pāhoehoe emplacement, including the direct correlation between summit pressurization and flow advance, the influence of existing geologic structures on flow pathways, and the possible relationship between effusion rate and flow length. Communicating uncertainty associated with lava flow hazards was a challenge throughout the crisis, but online distribution of information and direct contact with residents proved to be effective strategies for keeping the public informed and educated about flow progress and how lava flows work (including forecasting limitations). Volcanological and sociological lessons will be important for inevitable future lava flow crises in Hawai‘i and, potentially, elsewhere in the world.

Hawaii↗
USGS2016

Thermal mapping of a pahoehoe lava flow, Kilauea Volcano

Pāhoehoe lava flows are a major component of Hawaiian eruptive activity, and an important part of basaltic volcanism worldwide. In recent years, pāhoehoe lava has destroyed homes and threatened parts of Hawai‘i with inundation and disruption. In this study, we use oblique helicopter-borne thermal images to create high spatial resolution (~1 m) georeferenced thermal maps of the active pāhoehoe flow on Kīlauea Volcano’s East Rift Zone. Thermal maps were created on 27 days during 2014–2016 in the course of operational monitoring, encompassing a phase of activity that threatened the town of Pāhoa. Our results illustrate and reinforce how pāhoehoe flows are multicomponent systems consisting of the vent, master tube, distributary tubes and surface breakouts. The thermal maps accurately depict the distribution and character of pāhoehoe breakouts through time, and also delineate the subsurface lava tube. Surface breakouts were distributed widely across the pāhoehoe flow, with significant portions concurrently active well upslope of the flow front, often concentrated in clusters of activity that evolved through time. Gradual changes to surface breakout distribution and migration relate to intrinsic processes in the flow, including the slow evolution of the distributary tube system. Abrupt disruptions to this system, and the creation of new breakouts (and associated hazards), were triggered by extrinsic forcing—namely fluctuations in lava supply rate at the vent which disrupted the master lava tube. Although the total area of a pāhoehoe flow has been suggested to relate to effusion rate, our results show that changes in the proportion of expansion vs. overplating can complicate this relationship. By modifying existing techniques, we estimate time-averaged discharge rates for the flow during 2014–2016 generally in the range of 1–2 m3 s-1 (mean: 1.3±0.4 m3 s-1) – less than half of Kīlauea’s typical eruption rate on the East Rift Zone and suggestive of a weak eruptive regime during 2014–2016. We caution, however, that this discharge rate approach requires further independent corroboration. The thermal maps provide the first synoptic characterization of pāhoehoe flow activity at high spatial resolution, essential both for operational hazard assessment and fundamental understanding of pāhoehoe behavior.

Hawaii↗
USGS2015

Operational thermal remote sensing and lava flow monitoring at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory

Hawaiian volcanoes are highly accessible and well monitored by ground instruments. Nevertheless, observational gaps remain and thermal satellite imagery has proven useful in Hawai‘i for providing synoptic views of activity during intervals between field visits. Here we describe the beginning of a thermal remote sensing programme at the US Geological Survey Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO). Whereas expensive receiving stations have been traditionally required to achieve rapid downloading of satellite data, we exploit free, low-latency data sources on the internet for timely access to GOES, MODIS, ASTER and EO-1 ALI imagery. Automated scripts at the observatory download these data and provide a basic display of the images. Satellite data have been extremely useful for monitoring the ongoing lava flow activity on Kīlauea's East Rift Zone at Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō over the past few years. A recent lava flow, named Kahauale‘a 2, was upslope from residential subdivisions for over a year. Satellite data helped track the slow advance of the flow and contributed to hazard assessments. Ongoing improvement to thermal remote sensing at HVO incorporates automated hotspot detection, effusion rate estimation and lava flow forecasting, as has been done in Italy. These improvements should be useful for monitoring future activity on Mauna Loa.

Hawaii↗
USGS2015

Satellite monitoring of dramatic changes at Hawai'i's only alpine lake: Lake Waiau on Mauna Kea volcano

Lake Waiau is a small, typically 100-meter-long lake, located near the summit of Mauna Kea volcano, on the Island of Hawaiʻi. It is Hawaiʻi’s only alpine lake and is considered sacred in Hawaiian cultural tradition. Over the past few years, the lake has diminished in size, and, by October 2013, surface water had almost completely disappeared from the lake. In this study, we use high-resolution satellite images and aerial photographs to document recent changes at the lake. Based on our reconstructions covering the past 200 years, the historical lake surface area has typically ranged from 5,000 to 7,000 square meters, but in 2010 a dramatic plunge in lake area ensued. The lake area rebounded significantly in early 2014, following heavy winter storms. This near disappearance of the lake, judging from analysis of visitor photographs and field reports, appears to be highly unusual, if not unprecedented, in the historical record. The unusually low water levels in the lake are consistent with a recent severe drought in Hawaiʻi.

Hawaii↗
USGS2014

Interagency collaboration on an active volcano: A case study at Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park

Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park (HAVO) includes two active Hawai‘i shield volcanoes – Mauna Loa, the largest active volcano on earth that most recently erupted for three weeks in 1984, and Kīlauea, which has been erupting continuously for more than 31 years. Unlike the steep-sided volcanoes around the rim of the Pacific Ocean, all Hawaiian volcanoes have gentle-sloped flanks that result from copious eruptions of fluid lavas with infrequent interludes of explosive activity. Each of the Hawaiian volcanoes erupts from its summit area – Kīlauea and Mauna Loa both have summit calderas (large subsided craters)—and from one or more rift zones (a sequence of vents aligned radially away from the summit). Because Kilauea and Mauna Loa are included within the National Park, there is a natural intersection of missions for the National Park Service (NPS) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). HAVO staff and the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory scientists have worked closely together to monitor and forecast multiple eruptions from each of these volcanoes since HAVO’s founding in 1916.

Hawaii↗
USGS2012

One hundred years of volcano monitoring in Hawaii

In 2012 the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO), the oldest of five volcano observatories in the United States, is commemorating the 100th anniversary of its founding. HVO's location, on the rim of Kilauea volcano (Figure 1)—one of the most active volcanoes on Earth—has provided an unprecedented opportunity over the past century to study processes associated with active volcanism and develop methods for hazards assessment and mitigation. The scientifically and societally important results that have come from 100 years of HVO's existence are the realization of one man's vision of the best way to protect humanity from natural disasters. That vision was a response to an unusually destructive decade that began the twentieth century, a decade that saw almost 200,000 people killed by the effects of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

Hawai'i↗
USGS2011

The story of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory -- A remarkable first 100 years of tracking eruptions and earthquakes

The year 2012 marks the centennial of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO). With the support and cooperation of visionaries, financiers, scientists, and other individuals and organizations, HVO has successfully achieved 100 years of continuous monitoring of Hawaiian volcanoes. As we celebrate this milestone anniversary, we express our sincere mahalo—thanks—to the people who have contributed to and participated in HVO’s mission during this past century. First and foremost, we owe a debt of gratitude to the late Thomas A. Jaggar, Jr., the geologist whose vision and efforts led to the founding of HVO. We also acknowledge the pioneering contributions of the late Frank A. Perret, who began the continuous monitoring of Kīlauea in 1911, setting the stage for Jaggar, who took over the work in 1912. Initial support for HVO was provided by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the Carnegie Geophysical Laboratory, which financed the initial cache of volcano monitoring instruments and Perret’s work in 1911. The Hawaiian Volcano Research Association, a group of Honolulu businessmen organized by Lorrin A. Thurston, also provided essential funding for HVO’s daily operations starting in mid-1912 and continuing for several decades. Since HVO’s beginning, the University of Hawaiʻi (UH), called the College of Hawaii until 1920, has been an advocate of HVO’s scientific studies. We have benefited from collaborations with UH scientists at both the Hilo and Mänoa campuses and look forward to future cooperative efforts to better understand how Hawaiian volcanoes work. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has operated HVO continuously since 1947. Before then, HVO was under the administration of various Federal agencies—the U.S. Weather Bureau, at the time part of the Department of Agriculture, from 1919 to 1924; the USGS, which first managed HVO from 1924 to 1935; and the National Park Service from 1935 to 1947. For 76 of its first 100 years, HVO has been part of the USGS, the Nation’s premier Earth science agency. It currently operates under the direction of the USGS Volcano Science Center, which now supports five volcano observatories covering six U.S. areas—Hawaiʻi (HVO), Alaska and the Northern Mariana Islands (Alaska Volcano Observatory), Washington and Oregon (Cascades Volcano Observatory), California (California Volcano Observatory), and the Yellowstone region (Yellowstone Volcano Observatory). Although the National Park Service (NPS) managed HVO for only 12 years, HVO has enjoyed a close working relationship with Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park (named Hawaii National Park until 1961) since the park’s founding in 1916. Today, as in past years, the USGS and NPS work together to ensure the safety and education of park visitors. We are grateful to all park employees, particularly Superintendent Cindy Orlando and Chief Ranger Talmadge Magno and their predecessors, for their continuing support of HVO’s mission. HVO also works closely with the Hawaiʻi County Civil Defense. During volcanic and earthquake crises, we have appreciated the support of civil defense staff, especially that of Harry Kim and Quince Mento, who administered the agency during highly stressful episodes of Kīlauea's ongoing eruption. Our work in remote areas on Hawaiʻi’s active volcanoes is possible only with the able assistance of Hawaiʻi County and private pilots who have safely flown HVO staff to eruption sites through the decades. A special mahalo goes to David Okita, who has been HVO’s principal helicopter pilot for more than two decades. Many commercial and Civil Air Patrol pilots have also assisted HVO by reporting their observations during various eruptive events. Hawaiʻi’s news media—print, television, radio, and online sources—do an excellent job of distributing volcano and earthquake information to the public. Their assistance is invaluable to HVO, especially during times of crisis. HVO’s efforts to provide timely and accurate scientific information about Hawaiian volcanoes and earthquakes succeed only because of you, our receptive and keenly aware public. By following the activity of Hawaiʻi’s active volcanoes through our daily eruption updates posted on the HVO website, viewing HVO webcam images, reading our weekly “Volcano Watch” articles, and attending our public lectures, you help us to ensure that you can live safely with Hawaiʻi’s dynamic volcanoes. To everyone who has shared in HVO’s reaching this milestone—100 years of continuous volcano monitoring—we extend our deepest gratitude. Mahalo nui loa!

Hawai'i↗
USGS2010

MATLAB tools for improved characterization and quantification of volcanic incandescence in Webcam imagery: Applications at Kilauea Volcano, Hawai'i

Webcams are now standard tools for volcano monitoring and are used at observatories in Alaska, the Cascades, Kamchatka, Hawai‘i, Italy, and Japan, among other locations. Webcam images allow invaluable documentation of activity and provide a powerful comparative tool for interpreting other monitoring datastreams, such as seismicity and deformation. Automated image processing can improve the time efficiency and rigor of Webcam image interpretation, and potentially extract more information on eruptive activity. For instance, Lovick and others (2008) provided a suite of processing tools that performed such tasks as noise reduction, eliminating uninteresting images from an image collection, and detecting incandescence, with an application to dome activity at Mount St. Helens during 2007. In this paper, we present two very simple automated approaches for improved characterization and quantification of volcanic incandescence in Webcam images at Kīlauea Volcano, Hawai‘i. The techniques are implemented in MATLAB (version 2009b, ® The Mathworks, Inc.) to take advantage of the ease of matrix operations. Incandescence is a useful indictor of the location and extent of active lava flows and also a potentially powerful proxy for activity levels at open vents. We apply our techniques to a period covering both summit and east rift zone activity at Kīlauea during 2008–2009 and compare the results to complementary datasets (seismicity, tilt) to demonstrate their integrative potential. A great strength of this study is the demonstrated success of these tools in an operational setting at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) over the course of more than a year. Although applied only to Webcam images here, the techniques could be applied to any type of sequential images, such as time-lapse photography. We expect that these tools are applicable to many other volcano monitoring scenarios, and the two MATLAB scripts, as they are implemented at HVO, are included in the appendixes. These scripts would require minor to moderate modifications for use elsewhere, primarily to customize directory navigation. If the user has some familiarity with MATLAB, or programming in general, these modifications should be easy. Although we originally anticipated needing the Image Processing Toolbox, the scripts in the appendixes do not require it. Thus, only the base installation of MATLAB is needed. Because fairly basic MATLAB functions are used, we expect that the script can be run successfully by versions earlier than 2009b.

Hawaii↗
USGS2009

The length of channelized lava flows: Insight from the 1859 eruption of Mauna Loa Volcano, Hawai‘i

The 1859 eruption of Mauna Loa Volcano, Hawai'i, produced paired 'a'ā and pāhoehoe flows of exceptional length (51 km). The 'a'ā flow field is distinguished by a long (> 36 km) and well-defined pāhoehoe-lined channel, indicating that channelized lava remained fluid to great distances from the vent. The 1859 eruption was further unusual in initiating at a radial vent on the volcano's northwest flank, instead of along the well-defined rift zone that has been the source of most historic activity. As such, it presents an opportunity both to examine controls on the emplacement of long lava channels and to assess hazards posed by future flank eruptions of Mauna Loa. Here we combine evidence from historical chronicles with analysis of bulk compositions, glass geothermometry, and microlite textures of samples collected along the 1859 lava flows to constrain eruption and flow emplacement conditions. The bulk compositions of samples from the 'a'ā and pāhoehoe flow fields are bimodally distributed and indicate tapping of two discrete magma bodies during eruption. Samples from the pāhoehoe flow field have bulk compositions similar to those of historically-erupted lavas (< 8 wt.% MgO); lava that fed the 'a'ā channel is more primitive (> 8 wt.% MgO), nearly aphyric, and was erupted at high temperatures (1194–1216 °C). We suggest that the physical properties of proximal channel-fed lava (i.e., high-temperature, low crystallinity, and low bulk viscosity) promoted both rapid flow advance and development of long pāhoehoe-lined channels. Critical for the latter was the large temperature decrease (~ 50 °C) required to reach the point at which plagioclase and pyroxene started to crystallize; the importance of phase constraints are emphasized by our difficulty in replicating patterns of cooling and crystallization recorded by high-temperature field samples using common models of flow emplacement. Placement of the 1859 eruption within the context of historic activity at Mauna Loa suggests that the formation of radial vents and eruptions of high-temperature magma may not only be linked, but may also be a consequence of periods of high magma supply (e.g., 1843–1877). Flank eruptions could therefore warrant special consideration in models and hazard mitigation efforts.

Hawai'i↗
USGS2006

Applications of geophysical methods to volcano monitoring

The array of geophysical technologies used in volcano hazards studies - some developed originally only for volcano monitoring - ranges from satellite remote sensing including InSAR to leveling and EDM surveys, campaign and telemetered GPS networks, electronic tiltmeters and strainmeters, airborne magnetic and electromagnetic surveys, short-period and broadband seismic monitoring, even microphones tuned for infrasound. They include virtually every method used in resource exploration except large-scale seismic reflection. By “geophysical ” we include both active and passive methods as well as geodetic technologies. Volcano monitoring incorporates telemetry to handle high-bandwith cameras and broadband seismometers. Critical geophysical targets include the flux of magma in shallow reservoir and lava-tube systems, changes in active hydrothermal systems, volcanic edifice stability, and lahars. Since the eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington State in 1980, and the eruption at Pu’u O’o in Hawai’i beginning in 1983 and still continuing, dramatic advances have occurred in monitoring technology such as “crisis GIS” and lahar modeling, InSAR interferograms, as well as gas emission geochemistry sampling, and hazards mapping and eruption predictions. The on-going eruption of Mount St. Helens has led to new monitoring technologies, including advances in broadband Wi-Fi and satellite telemetry as well as new instrumentation. Assessment of the gap between adequate monitoring and threat at the 169 potentially dangerous Holocene volcanoes shows where populations are dangerously exposed to volcanic catastrophes in the United States and its territories . This paper focuses primarily on Hawai’ian volcanoes and the northern Pacific and Cascades volcanoes. The US Geological Survey, the US National Park System, and the University of Utah cooperate in a program to monitor the huge Yellowstone volcanic system, and a separate observatory monitors the restive Long Valley caldera in collaboration with the US Forest Service.

Conference Paper↗
USGS2002

Whole-rock and glass major-element geochemistry of Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii, near-vent eruptive products: September 1994 through September 2001

This report presents major-element geochemical data for glasses and whole-rock aliquots among 523 lava samples collected near the vent on Kilauea's east rift zone between September 1994 and October 2001. Information on sample collection, analysis techniques and analytical standard reproducibility are presented as a PDF file, which also includes a detailed explantion of the categories of sample information presented in the database spreadsheet. The sample database is downloadable as a separate Microsoft Excel file.

Hawai'i↗
USGS1998

The Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō-Kūpaianaha erruption of Kīlauea, November 1991–February 1994: Field data and flow maps

The Pu'u 'Ō'ō-Kūpaianaha eruption on the east rift zone of Kīlauea, which began in January 1983, is the longest-lived rift zone eruption of the last two centuries. By 1994, a broad field of lava, nearly 1 km 3 in volume and 12 km wide at the coast, had buried 87 km 2 of the volcano's south flank. The initial six months of fissure eruptions (episodes 1-3) were followed by three years of episodic lava fountaining from the Pu'u 'Ō'ō vent (episodes 4–47). In July 1986, after two days of fissure eruptions up- and downrift from Pu'u 'Ō'ō (episodes 48a and 48b), the eruption shifted to a new vent, Kūpaianaha, 3.5 km downrift. For the next five-and-a-half years (episode 48), Kūpaianaha was the site of nearly continuous low-level effusion. The 49th episode occurred in November 1991, when several fissures opened between Pu'u 'Ō'ō and Kūpaianaha (see Mangan and others, 1995, Bulletin of Volcanology, v. 57, p. 127-135). This three-week-long outburst was the result of the waning output of the Kūpaianaha vent, which finally died in February 1992 (see Kauahikaua and others, 1996, Bulletin of Volcanology, v. 57, p. 641-648). The third epoch of the eruption began ten days later, when vents opened on the uprift slope of the Pu'u 'Ō'ō cone. Several flank vents erupted over the next two years (episodes 50-53). In the first year, from February 1992 through February 1993, the low-level effusion was interrupted by 21 brief pauses. These ended with the beginning of episode 53 in February 1993, and for the next year, lava effusion was continuous. Episode 53 was ongoing at the end of the interval covered by this report. During the years that Kūpaianaha was active, the Pu'u 'Ō'ō conduit gradually evolved into a crater 300 m in diameter as the conduit walls collapsed. Beginning in 1987, an active lava pond was intermittently visible in the bottom of the crater; from 1990 on, the pond was almost continuously present. The Pu'u 'Ō‘ō pond drained at the beginning of episode 49 in November 1991, and the crater floor collapsed. Lava was visible in the crater by early December, and pond overflows resurfaced the crater floor, raising it to its former level of 35 m below the rim by the end of January 1992. This report includes flow-field maps and a table giving a) start and stop times of the eruptive episodes and of pauses in the eruption, b) Pu'u 'Ō'ō lava pond and crater-floor elevations, and c) elevations of the episode 50-53 vents and of the floors of the collapse pits that subsequently formed over these vents. A chronology of this interval of the eruption and an interpretation of the data included in this report can be found in Heliker and others (1998, Bulletin of Volcanology, v. 59, p. 381-393).

Hawaii↗
USGS1993

Thermal budget of the lower east rift zone, Kilauea Volcano

The lower east rift zone of Kilauea has been the site of repeated fissure eruptions fed by dikes that traverse the depths of interest to geothermal explorations. We find that a hot-rock-and-magma system of low permeability extending along the rift zone at depths below about 4 km and replenished with magma at a rate that is small in comparison to the modern eruption rate Kilauea can supply heat to an overlying hydrothermal aquifer sufficient to maintain temperatures of about 250??C if the characteristic permeability to 4-km depth is about 10-15m2.

Conference Paper↗