(BIVN) – Geologists and National Park personnel are taking a look back, as the one year anniversary of Kīlauea Volcano’s lower East Rift Zone eruption and summit collapse is nearly upon us.



Three public presentations will be given by the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park. The free events will provide an opportunity for residents to get a retrospective of the volcanic event that began on May 3, 2018.



A similar retrospective was originally planned for January’s Volcano Awareness Month talks, which were cancelled due to the partial shutdown of the federal government that sidelined the USGS / National Park talks.



The first two talks are being delivered by the USGS HVO.



On Tuesday, April 23, “Kīlauea Volcano’s 2018 lower East Rift Zone eruption” will be the subject of the After Dark in the Park special speaker presentation, starting at 7 p.m. at the Kīlauea Visitor Center Auditorium.



According to the promotional materials for the talk:

Kīlauea Volcano’s long-lasting East Rift Zone eruption changed abruptly when the Puʻu ʻŌʻō crater floor collapsed on April 30, 2018, followed by an intrusion of magma downrift. On May 3, lava erupted in the Leilani Estates subdivision; within two weeks, 24 fissures had opened along a 4.2-mile-long segment of the lower East Rift Zone. Fissure 8 soon became the dominant vent, erupting a fast-moving channelized lava flow that reached the ocean, burying 13.7 square miles of land and destroying over 700 structures along the way. Join USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory geologist Carolyn Parcheta as she recounts the progression of this dramatic eruption and shares her experiences monitoring it in this “After Dark in the Park” program.

Then, an “Overview of Kīlauea Volcano’s 2018 events” will be presented on Thursday, May 2, at 7 p.m. at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo classroom building Room 100.



According to the USGS HVO:

In 2018, the largest flank eruption and caldera collapse in at least 200 years occurred on Kīlauea Volcano. It began on May 3, when a fissure erupted in Hawaiʻi Island’s lower Puna District. In all, 24 fissures eventually erupted along a 4.2-mile-long segment of Kīlauea’s lower East Rift Zone (LERZ). Fissure 8 became the dominant vent, erupting a voluminous lava flow that reached the ocean, destroying over 700 structures along the way. As magma drained from the summit reservoir to feed the lava flow, parts of Kīlauea’s summit caldera collapsed, by more than 1600 feet in places, accompanied by dozens of earthquakes each day. In early August 2018, the summit subsidence and earthquakes abruptly ended, and the LERZ lava effusion declined until September 5, when active lava was no longer observed at fissure 8. USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory scientist Ingrid Johanson presents an overview of this summer’s unprecedented events on Kīlauea, including how tilt data, GPS, and satellite radar helped scientists understand what was happening in 2018 and what the volcano is doing now.

Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park is set to give its own After Dark presentation on Thursday, May 9, as park managers recap the successes, and work ahead, a year after Kīlauea caldera’s summit collapse.



This National Park Service media release has more about the talk: