It has been quiet at Kīlauea in Hawaii. The eruption on the lower East Rift Zone that captured the planet’s attention over the summer trickled to a stop in late August and since then there hasn’t been much going on at all at the giant shield volcano. In fact, the Hawaii Volcano Observatory reports that carbon dioxide emissions at Kīlauea are lower than anything they’ve seen in over a decade. Earthquakes and collapses are now infrequent on the volcano and nary a lava flow can be seen at the surface, even deep in the Fissure 8 cinder cone built on the site of Leilani Estates. Even the ubiquitous deformation that was happening at the summit (deflation) and in the lower East Rift Zone (inflation) have vanished. Hawaii Volcanoes National Park reopened to tourists this past week after closing the whole summit of Kīlauea. By no means is anyone declaring the eruption over, but right now, Kīlauea really not doing much.
So, let’s take stock in what happened during the eruption. Here’s some of the data: approximately 35.5 square kilometers of the big island were repaved with lava, which includes ~3.5 square kilometers added to the island. That’s roughly twice the size of Key West in Florida but only 0.3% of the area of the island of Hawaii itself.
