mauna

A woman watches the eruption of the Mauna Loa volcano on December 04, 2022 near Hilo, Hawaii.Photo: Justin Sullivan (Getty Images)Mauna Loa, the world’s largest active volcano, began erupting in Hawaii in late November for the first time since 1984. Eruptions have continued for nearly two weeks, creating spectacular, slow-moving lava flows that so far have not threatened any local communities. Earlier this week, officials worried that one of the lava flows would reach the Daniel K. Inouye Highway. But as ofThursday, the…

Earth is rumbling and volcanoes are erupting around the world this week. On Sunday, Mount Semeru in Indonesia began erupting, shrouding East Java province in ash and forcing 2,000 residents to flee. A volcano on the island of Stromboli off the coast of Italy erupted on Monday, triggering earthquakes and forcing schools to close. Meanwhile, Mauna Loa on Hawaii’s Big Island continued shooting up plumes and oozing out lava after beginning its recent eruption on November 27. It last erupted in 1984. The US Geological…

By Adam Voiland, NASA Earth Observatory December 6, 2022Natural-color Landsat 9 satellite image captured on December 2, 2022, of the ongoing eruption at Mauna Loa. (Click image for wider, high-resolution view.)The Landsat 9 satellite acquired this image of the volcanic eruption as lava flowed past the Mauna Loa Observatory toward Saddle Road.On December 2, 2022, this natural-color satellite image of an ongoing eruption at Mauna Loa was acquired by the Operational Land Imager-2 (OLI-2) on Landsat 9. At the time, lava from…

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Research conducted by a University of Miami scientist and his graduate assistant accurately predicted which of the two rift zones of Hawaii's Mauna Loa volcano would erupt. The Mauna Loa, the world's largest active volcano, began erupting on Nov. 27 for the first time in nearly 40 years, spewing lava…

NOAA-NASA Suomi NPP satellite Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) images of Hawaii on October 29 and November 28, 2022.During Mauna Loa’s first eruption in nearly four decades, satellites observed the volcano’s nighttime glow and sulfur dioxide plume.Hawaii’s Mauna Loa—the world’s largest active volcano—has been quiet for the past four decades. But in November 2022, the volcano began to stir.In early October 2022, the first signs of unrest emerged, when U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) data showed a tenfold…

The following essay is reprinted with permission from The Conversation, an online publication covering the latest research. Hawaii’s Mauna Loa, the world’s largest active volcano, began sending up fountains of glowing rock and spilling lava from fissures as its first eruption in nearly four decades began on Nov. 27, 2022. Where does that molten rock come from? We asked Gabi Laske, a geophysicist at the University of California-San Diego who led one of the first projects to map the deep plumbing that feeds the Hawaiian…

The false idea that volcanoes release enormous amounts of carbon dioxide has been a popular meme among climate deniers for years. It’s true that volcanic activity causes an increase in atmospheric CO2 levels. But this contribution is absolutely minuscule compared to what we’re doing to the planet: NASA estimates that human activity creates the equivalent amount of CO2 as a Mount St. Helens-size eruption once every two and a half hours (!).“Volcanoes erupt all the time,” Phoenix said. “There’s about 45 volcanoes erupting…

Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano—the largest active volcano on Earth—erupted on Sunday night for the first time since 1984, flooding the bowl-like caldera at its summit with a pool of glowing lava. The eruption was presaged by an increase in earthquake swarms and sections of the ground moving up and down at the summit caldera (called Moku‘aweoweo) starting in August, says Jessica Ball, a volcanologist at the U.S. Geological Survey. At approximately 11:30 P.M. Hawaiian Standard Time on November 27, lava started erupting within…

A view of the eruption taken by a research camera on the northern rim of the caldera on Monday, November 28.Photo: USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (AP)The world’s largest active volcano is erupting for the first time in almost 40 years. The Mauna Loa volcano, which is located on the Big Island in Hawaii, started erupting on Sunday night, breaking its longest quiet streak in recorded history.The U.S. Geological Survey said in an advisory that the eruption began at 11:30 p.m.HST on Sunday in Moku‘āweoweo, the summit…

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain The Mauna Loa summit at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park is closed until further notice due to the volcano "experiencing heightened unrest," according to an advisory posted by the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory on Thursday. …