KÄ«lauea (/kiËlaÊËeɪ.É/; Hawaiian: [ËkiËlÉuËwÉjÉ]) is a shield volcano in the Hawaiian Islands, the most active of the five volcanoes that together form the island of HawaiÊ»i. Located along the southern shore of the island, the volcano, at 300,000 to 600,000 years old, is the second youngest product of the Hawaiian hotspot and the current eruptive center of the HawaiianâEmperor seamount chain. Because it lacks topographic prominence and its activities historically coincided with those of Mauna Loa, KÄ«lauea was once thought to be a satellite of its much larger neighbor. Structurally, KÄ«lauea has a large, fairly recently formed caldera at its summit and two active rift zones, one extending 125 km (78 mi) east and the other 35 km (22 mi) west, as an active fault line of unknown depth moving vertically an average of 2 to 20 mm (0.1 to 0.8 in) per year.
As I was telling you just earlier, the Kilauea volcano erupted, with a fissure throwing lava up more than 20 meters towards the sky in a dazzling display of volcanic power. The Hawaii eruption took place just after one of the volcano’s floors collapsed, thus creating the necessary conditions for lava to come out to [...]
A volcanic eruption is one of the most spectacular phenomena in nature, and despite the fact that they’re not even nearly as common as thunder or rainbows, there’s still a whole bunch of active volcanoes today that fascinate both scientists and tourists. But things get even more wicked when lava meets ocean water; really amazing [...]
Mon, Mar 7, 2011
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