Puhimau thermal area: a window into the upper east rift zone of Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii?

Abstract

We report the results of two soil CO 2 efflux surveys by the closed chamber circulation method at the Puhimau thermal area in the upper East Rift Zone (ERZ) of Kilauea volcano, Hawaii. The surveys were undertaken in 1996 and 1998 to constrain how much CO 2 might be reaching the ERZ after degassing beneath the summit caldera and whether the Puhimau thermal area might be a significant contributor to the overall CO 2 budget of Kilauea. The area was revisited in 2001 to determine the effects of surface disturbance on efflux values by the collar emplacement technique utilized in the earlier surveys. Utilizing a cutoff value of 50 g m −2 d −1 for the surrounding forest background efflux, the CO 2 emission rates for the anomaly at Puhimau thermal area were 27 t d −1 in 1996 and 17 t d −1 in 1998. Water vapor was removed before analysis in all cases in order to obtain CO 2 values on a dry air basis and mitigate the effect of water vapor dilution on the measurements. It is clear that Puhimau thermal area is not a significant contributor to Kilauea's CO 2 output and that most of Kilauea's CO 2 (8500 t d −1 ) is degassed at the summit, leaving only magma with its remaining stored volatiles, such as SO 2 , for injection down the ERZ. Because of the low CO 2 emission rate and the presence of a shallow water table in the upper ERZ that effectively scrubs SO 2 and other acid gases, Puhimau thermal area currently does not appear to be generally well suited for observing temporal changes in degassing at Kilauea.