Napau-Pu`u O`o rift eruption on Kilauea now over 2 km long

Activity along the newly-formed rift that opened between Napau and Pu`u O`o craters this weekend continues to be active. It isn't in constant eruption, but it does cycle through periods of heightened activity and according to the Hawaii Volcano Observatory, some of the fire fountains have sent lava shooting skyward as much as 30 m / ~100 feet. Coming along with the lava is extremely elevated sulfur dioxide emissions, from the recent baseline of ~700 tonnes/day to now over 10,000 tonnes/day. This suggests that the magma is readily degassing under the new rift - and all this fire fountaining supports the idea that this injection of magma might be very gas-rich. Apparently it is still unclear whether the rift eruption is a brand new injection of magma or diverted lava from the weekend's collapses/draindowns. Also, all of the downrift activity from Pu`u O`o, such as the Thanksgiving Eve Breakout, seems to have shut down since the opening of the new fissure system. Deflation at the summit and Pu`u O`o also seems to have flattened out since the initial eruption over the weekend. It looks pretty quiet this morning (March 8) on the new Pu`u O`o to Napau webcam, but as the Kilauea status update mentions, the activity at the new rift comes and goes. We haven't lost all the lava at the Halema`uma`u summit crater as even now, a glow is visible from the lava lake that now sits 200 meters below the crater floor. HVO has plenty of images and movies of the new eruption, so be sure to check those out, while Big Island News has a nice video timeline of the events during this new eruption.