(BIVN) – Roughly twenty minutes after posting a new Volcanic Activity Notice to its website concerning the summit of Kilauea, USGS observed an explosion in Halema‘uma‘u crater.

However, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory’s interpretation is that the explosion was triggered by a rockfall from the steep walls of Overlook crater, and not by an interaction with the water table.

The photograph (full image below) was taken at 8:29 a.m. HST from the Jaggar Museum overlook. The explosion was short-lived.

“Geologists examining the ash deposits on the rim of Halema‘uma‘u crater found fresh lava fragments hurled from the lava lake,” USGS wrote in a later post to its website. “This explosion was not caused by the interaction of the lava lake with the water table. When the ash cleared from the crater about an hour after the explosion, geologists were able to observe the lava lake surface, which is still above the water table.”