More than 220 earthquakes have rocked Hawaii in the last 24 hours; the increase in seismic activity and other signals at the Kilauea Volcano have prompted USGS scientists at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) to increase the volcano alert level there. While the volcano is not erupting yet as of press time, USGS warns that an “eruption can occur in the future with little warning.”
According to HVO scientists, seismicity began to increase just before midnight. Since 3 am local-time, 25-30 locatable earthquakes have occurred per hour at depths 1–2 miles below the surface. Earthquake clusters have migrated between the area just south of Halema’uma’u, a pit within the summit caldera crater, and the region southwest of the outer caldera boundary. The most intense activity occurred between 6 and 8 am when earthquakes were clustering just south of Halemaʻumaʻu. There have been over 180 locatable earthquakes in this region in the past 6 hours, with magnitudes ranging from a maximum of 3.4 to less than 1. Several of these earthquakes were large enough to be felt by HVO staff in the field, who also reported rockfalls on the south side of Halemaʻumaʻu.
There have been 502 earthquakes on the Big Island of Hawaii over the last 7 days; 228 of those have happened in the last 24 hours.
No comments:
Post a Comment