A volcano wall collapse was recently captured on Kīlauea volcano, one of the most active volcanoes in the world. The collapse occurred on February 10th, at 8:21 a.m. local time when a chunk of the volcano collapsed, part of an ongoing collapse of the pit crater.
The sudden collapse was on Kīlauea volcano's active East Rift Zone, specifically on the northeast rim of the west pit in Pu’u O’o. This collapse occurred during a period of prolonged subsidence as the adjacent ground fell. Kīlauea volcano is actively monitored by the USGS on the island, looking for evidence of new eruptions and danger to local communities.
While there have been several lava channels and points where lava has breached the surface of the island, there are no active threats to the local communities. This is, in part, due to the protected Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, which protects some of the most active volcanic areas of the island from development and tourists.
Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō, a vent on the Kīlauea East Rift Zone has been erupting practically continuously for the past 35 years. The island of Hawaii has seen a significant amount of activity in the past year, with approximately 23 to 46 million gallons of lava flowing from the volcano each day. The volcano is constantly delivering a new supply of lava from the underlying hot spot.
The source of this constant lava flow is a massive lava tube running from the volcano to the Pacific Ocean, which lasted 15 months, an incredibly long period of time for a lava tube.
The USGS estimated that 1-2 cubic meters of lava flowed into the ocean per second, totaling up to 1.5 billion gallons of lava during the lava tube's year-plus long lifespan.
