An eruption from Hawaii’s Kilauea Volcano has prompted the evacuation of more than 1,000 residents and the declaration of a state of emergency in affected areas. There are reports of lava rolling into several areas including roadways, forestry areas and close to residential districts.
Jeffrey Karson is a geologist and professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences. He is also one of the principal investigators of the Syracuse University Lava Project, which provides a laboratory setting to experiment with volcanic eruptions. Karson says this latest eruption in Hawaii represents just one small addition of lava to the mountain.
Karson says:
“Besides the danger of exposure to hot lava spatter and flows (~1200°C or 2200°F- 5 times hotter than your oven’s maximum temperature), other hazards are fissures opening along the rift zone, fires and poisonous sulfur dioxide gas emissions. The eruption could last for a few days or much longer.
“The ongoing eruption in Hawaii is no surprise. In a geological sense, this is ‘business as usual’. The big island of Hawaii is a giant volcano- the largest on Earth- most of which is below sea level. It has been built up by countless lava flows over about half a million (500,000) years. This eruption represents just one small addition of lava to that mountain.
“The Kilauea center has been erupting for decades and this is just a slightly more vigorous phase. Recently, lava from the summit of Kilauea has been advancing in surface flows. The current eruption is a fissure eruption with lava fountaining and flowing from vertical conduit injected along the East Rift Zone, comparable to the Holuhraun eruption in Iceland in 2014-15.”
To request interviews or get more information:
Daryl Lovell
Media Relations Manager
Division of Communications and Marketing
T 315.443.1184 M 315.380.0206
dalovell@syr.edu | @DarylLovell
820 Comstock Avenue, Suite 308, Syracuse, NY 13244
news.syr.edu | syracuse.edu
Syracuse University
Assistant Professors Ferdinando Fioretto and Endadul Hoque, faculty members in the College of Engineering and Computer Science, have earned highly competitive Google Research Scholar awards. The Google Research Scholar Program provides unrestricted gifts of up to $60,000 to support research…
Sitting on a beach looking out to sea, it may seem unusual to spot one of the world’s largest animals swimming in shallow, coastal, 30-foot-deep waters. But each winter, female southern right whales migrate thousands of miles to bay habitats…
More than 30 Syracuse University faculty and leaders and representatives from the U.S. Air Force Research Lab convened on campus on May 6 to ideate around future collaboration opportunities. These include combined research initiatives in quantum information science and quantum…
“When am I ever going to use this in real life?” That is the oft-heard refrain from middle- and high-school science students, struggling through labs and formulas that feel as far removed from their day-to-day as, well, space travel. Sarthak…
Dusting for fingerprints, documenting blood stain patterns and measuring bullet trajectory—you might think this is a description of a recent episode from the popular television series “CSI.” While this may be true, these are also the daily lessons students are…
If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.
