Speaker A
Mhm. Hello, welcome everyone. I'm your host Stefan Burns, geologist, geophysicist, space weather guy. Kilauea volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii is erupting for the 50th time as part of this sequence of eruptions.
Kilauea volcano erupts for the 50th time with record-breaking lava fountains and possible lava tornadoes, analyzed by geologist Stefan Burns.
Key Takeaways
- Kilauea's 50th eruption episode is record-breaking in frequency and intensity compared to past eruptions.
- Lava fountains have reached unprecedented heights of around 1,000 feet during this eruptive phase.
- Lava tornadoes are a rare but documented phenomenon linked to intense lava fountain convection.
- Volcanic activity at Kilauea is influenced by tidal cycles, lunar phases, and solar cycles.
- Seismic swarms beneath Kilauea indicate complex magma plumbing connecting it with Mauna Loa.
Summary
- Kilauea volcano on Hawaii's Big Island is erupting for the 50th time in a record-breaking sequence faster than the historic Puʻu ʻŌʻō eruptions.
- All lava fountain episodes are currently contained within the Halemaʻumaʻu crater, which is refilling after a 2018-2019 caldera collapse.
- Lava fountains have reached heights of up to 1,000 feet during episode 50, higher than recent episodes.
- Lava tornadoes formed during episode 49 due to convection and circulation from lava fountains, and may appear again in episode 50.
- USGS tilt monitoring data shows inflation patterns correlating with eruption intensity and tidal cycles influenced by the moon and sun.
- There is a clear solar cycle rhythm observed in volcanic activity data from Kilauea and other Earth volcanoes.
- Seismic activity includes earthquake swarms related to the Pahala Sill Complex, a magma layer system connecting Kilauea and Mauna Loa volcanoes.
- The ongoing eruptive phase could represent a new period of extreme volcanic activity, possibly rivaling the historic 35-year Puʻu ʻŌʻō eruption.
- No lava has flowed outside Volcanoes National Park during these episodes, but tephra, pumice, and Pele's hair have fallen locally.
- Tidal forces and lunar phases appear to influence eruption timing and intensity, with episode 50 starting near a strong tidal maximum and full moon.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and eruption overview
- 02:36Lava fountains and Halemaʻumaʻu crater activity
- 07:43Lava tornadoes during episode 49
- 08:51USGS tilt monitoring data analysis
- 09:53Eruption heights and trends
- 11:11Tidal influence and lunar cycle effects
- 12:09Solar cycle resonance in volcanic activity
- 13:13Seismic activity and magma plumbing systems
- 15:01Summary and future outlook
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
And this is record-breaking. It broke the record at 47. That's when it tied, well, rather 48 is when it broke the record. It tied at 47 with the Puʻu ʻŌʻō eruptions.
Speaker A
The lava fountains that occurred as part of that from 1983-1986. Though those 47 took about 3 years, this 50th episode here occurring on the 27th of June 2026, and well, episode 1 started in late December 2024. So, it's only been
Speaker A
about a year and a half. So, not only have there been more lava fountain episodes, they've also been faster.
Speaker A
Uh occurring sometimes at a pretty quick clip. Other times stretching out to nearly a month in between, but in general, it's been quite a lot of lava fountain at Kīlauea, and this is part of an eruptive volcanic cycle that
Speaker A
appears to be one of the largest in history. Now, right now, all these lava fountain episodes are contained within the Halemaʻumaʻu crater.
Speaker A
So, there was a caldera collapse in 2018-2019. Now, it's filling that back up again.
Speaker A
Um none of this lava from these 50 eruptive episodes have gone out of Volcanoes National Park and caused destruction anywhere, though there has been tephra falling down and pumice and Pele's hair, which you can kind of see like right
Speaker A
here. The ash cloud from this, by the way, is going up uh about 17,000 ft or 5,000 m. So, this is quite significant. We may see tornadoes during episode 50. That's uh in the title. Reason why is because we
Speaker A
saw tornadoes last time. We can look at them right here. Here we see some uh um lava tornadoes, I guess you can call them. These aren't formed through the typical way a tornado's formed. It's just there's enough convection and
Speaker A
circulation due to lava fountain that you can get this sudden vortex to form. So, we have these um lava tornadoes, basically, form for episode 49. We've seen them before, but they're not that common. We actually had some tiny ones a little earlier
Speaker A
in the stream. Here's another example. You just see it kind of vortexing. And this is just again due to the very local circulation and heat flow dynamics at the uh caldera floor.
Speaker A
Still though, when I see that I think this is the coolest thing cuz basically it's like the elements are in balance.
Speaker A
You see fire element and you see air element side by side. Mother Earth sometimes tells you exactly what's going on and reveals to you all of her secrets.
Speaker A
So, uh we had these lava tornadoes with episode 49 and we very well may have them again with this episode here, episode 50, which is expected to last again about another 7 hours or so. We can look at our
Speaker A
monitoring data, our tilt data from the USGS. So, we'll switch over to that. Here we see our tilt data and uh we see for the past 2 days here's the past week. I don't think this one I guess it is
Speaker A
accurate cuz it's showing it go way down. But, here's the past week. We see that we're now below the value that we were about a week ago and here's our 3-month.
Speaker A
For some reason the 1-month data is gone, but our 3-month is showing that we're maybe 1/4, 1/5 the way there. So, we have another 7 8, maybe even 9 hours left, but probably more like 7 or 8 hours left. Uh but,
Speaker A
you'll notice that this eruption this inflation for episode 50 went up higher than the prior ones here going all the way back.
Speaker A
And if you go to our past year, then you can really see this trend that we are on where let me increase the size for you.
Speaker A
Where we were having these pretty big eruptive episodes lava fountains going to 1,500 ft. Um, 400 500 m.
Speaker A
Here's a really big one that occurred. And uh, then that kind of cooled off. We had this odd uh, inflation episode right here. And then they've been really short and frequent. Now we're starting to get back to some of these prior levels. We're
Speaker A
getting close to it at least. So, that tracks especially considering that with this episode episode 50 lava fountains have reached 1,000 ft. So, the past few they've been reaching up to about 600 maybe 700 not really pushing past that. This time they did peak out
Speaker A
at 1,000 maybe we get that again a few hours from now. There are rhythms to this, but in general that's what we're seeing. Um, now keep in mind that it's as I'm filming this right now, it's about 2
Speaker A
hours away from high tide for the day. So, there's two tidal maximums. The one that was at around 12 to 1:00 a.m. was a pretty weak tidal maximum but still a local maximum. The one that's occurring uh, around I think it's 2:34 p.m. local time
Speaker A
is quite a bit stronger and the full moon is coming up in just 2 days.
Speaker A
So, right now the illumination of the moon is 95%. We do see this resonance with uh, Kilauea erupting with these lava fountains and it preferring to do that around new moon or full moons with the fortnightly tidal maximum. So, here we
Speaker A
see Kilauea having erupted begun her 50th episode just shortly before that tidal maximum you know, about 3 4 hours before. And she'll be erupting through that. But that displacement the tidal maximum is about 2.3 2.4 feet.
Speaker A
So, you know, before you actually get this huge lava fountain on that final pressure release, that extra 2 3 feet can be kind of significant within the magma chamber.
Speaker A
Um so, we just see these connections between tidal rhythms and and the moon and the sun.
Speaker A
Kilauea, we see a very clear solar cycle rhythm within volcanic data from Hawaii. That's interesting actually see that across in general Earth volcanic data. You see this solar cycle resonance there and more. So, Kilauea has been very very
Speaker A
active now for a year and a half and this could be a new phase. It already is a new phase, but what I mean is it could be a new phase of extreme activity.
Speaker A
We don't know, but we know that the Puʻu ʻŌʻō eruptions lasted from '83 to 2018.
Speaker A
Uh finishing with a big eruption a rift eruption in the east and a big magnitude 6.9 earthquake in 2018. So, this could just be getting started and that was the biggest phase of volcanic activity from Kilauea in recorded history. Like at
Speaker A
least you know, a few hundred years. So, now we've seen 50 faster than the prior record which was with that historic eruption cycle that was 35 years long.
Speaker A
So, if that is the case and I think it is, then this is really heating up pretty quick.
Speaker A
Some evidence of that I've discussed this before, but I'll I'll show show it again.
Speaker A
Some evidence of that is if you go to Hawaii on the USGS earthquakes map, we do see some activity here over the past 24 hours, a 2.6, 2.6, 2.7. Though none of those are necessarily special or significant in
Speaker A
any way. But if you put on 30 days all magnitude, you see this giant swarm that pops up here. This has been ongoing now for 6 7 years or so.
Speaker A
So, you have what's known as the Pahala Sill Complex about 30 to 50 km underneath to the west of Kilauea, which is we see up here. We do see a little bit of clustering of earthquakes around Kilauea. Here's you even see, you know,
Speaker A
a smoke plume coming up. This is the Halemaumau crater right here. This is what collapsed in 2018-2019.
Speaker A
Now it's refilling. Once it refills, if it does all the way from these lava fountain episodes, it will start to spill out. Or maybe we get another collapse because of the weight overbearing will just collapse the chamber underneath. All of this is
Speaker A
possible. We don't know. But what we do see, because there have been tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of microquakes in this area, uh and you also see here Mauna Loa. So, you have Kilauea here and you have Mauna Loa there. You
Speaker A
see this Pahala Sill Complex is located in between the two, 30-50 km down. It's a sequence of horizontal sills. So, these are effectively layers of magma.
Speaker A
And every earthquake microfracture is part of this uh complex is further creating these horizontal layers. Magma fills it in. At the same time, the magma is pushing and generating these fractures.
Speaker A
So, this connects to both volcanoes. And
Speaker A
So, this maybe has existed before and has collapsed and, you know, goes through these cycles. Uh it's not like we're only talking about a thousand years of history here. We're talking about hundreds of thousands of years of history on the Big Island, but this is
Speaker A
relatively new for the past uh 6 7 years. And we also see that when there's a significant push of magma coming up from depth, you can get the contents of these magmatic sills and dikes. Dikes being like a vertical to diagonal sheet of
Speaker A
magma, like a tube you can think of. We can get those sills and dikes to rapidly evacuate. And there's extensive lava tubes all across the volcano, and they host huge huge huge flow.
Speaker A
So, under the right circumstances, you could see a massive evacuation of of magma stored in these complexes rush out to Kilauea and also potentially all the way out to the East Rift Zone, which is where it erupted in 2018. We see that
Speaker A
destruction. Look at the Look at what happened. A lot of homes lost. I think like 700 plus homes.
Speaker A
Uh and just cut across all the way down and lasted for months. And here we see it flowing out to the uh the ocean. And this looks like it's all new land right here. I'm not exactly sure about that. Maybe it's covering,
Speaker A
but it the terrain change looks like this is new land. So, uh and there is always land being generated on the Big Island. And it will until eventually the hotspot moves off the Big Island and there's a new Big
Speaker A
Island. Um So, you see the other islands here. Kauai, quite a bit smaller Garden Island, no active volcanism anymore. Um you see Oahu, no active volcanism anymore, but you do see remnants. For example, Diamond Head here, classic uh classic classic
Speaker A
ancient volcano and and more. Maui is still active, still is one volcano. Uh and the Big Island has multiple. There there's a five five volcanoes here. You have Kilauea, Mauna Loa, Mauna Kea. You have one up to the north and then you
Speaker A
also have the seamount volcano, which I think we're seeing right here with these earthquakes.
Speaker A
So, a lot happening at Hawaii and it's the 50th eruptive episode from Kilauea. So, I just want to let you know that as a result, we are throwing a sale at uh the website, which is earthevolution.com.
Speaker A
And so, if you want to pick up some products for 5% off, you can just go to earthevolution.com/store.
Speaker A
You see the different products that we have here. And the code is aloha5. All one word for 5% off till the end of month. Uh we have our spirituality, herb coffee, different merchandise. All these tea blends we make and mix ourselves
Speaker A
here in house. We also have these super optical clarity quartz crystals. These are awesome.
Speaker A
Uh they come in a five-pack bundle, so you really get a good value. And we also now have our uh lapis lazuli crystals in stock from Afghanistan. So, these are amazing, super super fantastic uh feel to them. They're great massage
Speaker A
stones. They just have a good energy to them, a good worry stone to put in your pocket. A great gifts cuz the the color on them is incredible. Uh really nice polish. So, we have these in stock now.
Speaker A
Uh if you like these sort of things, if you're fan of geology and crystals and more, then you can uh pick one or multiple up. We do have them in stock and you know, we have a good amount in
Speaker A
stock. And uh you will see here that we have some products from Hawaii. So, my friend Alohi, she uh has a company Po Naturals, as you can see, and she sells a bug spray. This stuff is awesome. We have
Speaker A
this in stock. Super effective, smells good. Actually, you can honestly just spray this on you to make you smell, you know, fairly nice if you're going out, especially if it's like kind of humid and sweaty. So, you know it's going to
Speaker A
be a little weird. You just put that on and you'll smell good and fresh, but you'll keep the bugs away. She also makes this incredible muscle balm here.
Speaker A
This is available, uh all made on the Big Island using natural ingredients, really incredible stuff. Uh that's available. And the the one thing I really want to direct you to today because we have a big heatwave coming in
Speaker A
on in the United States. It's all available in United States only is our fruit tea.
Speaker A
Fruit tea makes an amazing iced tea. In fact, I have it right here. So, I have some fruit tea I've been sipping on it for the past few hours.
Speaker A
And it's light, it's fruity, it's unsweetened other than this what comes naturally. Uh but it's not just sweet. It's got a little bit of complex flavor, and it's a blend of strawberry, elderberry, rose hips, hibiscus, and a little bit of lemon
Speaker A
balm. So, lemon balm is great cuz it's uh an anxiolytic. This helps you stay calm, cool, collected. If you have any problems like anxiety, fear, things of that nature, lemon balm is what you want to be drinking. Uh and then the
Speaker A
elderberry and rose hips are really good for your immune system, hibiscus for flavor and for color, and then the strawberry for tons and tons of flavor.
Speaker A
So, the fruit tea is really amazing. Uh you see that you actually get a good amount of what we give you, right? A lot of tea blends, especially the store-bought ones, they'll put this big banner of, let's say, strawberry on the
Speaker A
front, and then it'll be actually the fifth thing, and it'll just be natural flavored, like natural strawberry flavor. They won't even put strawberries in there. These are freeze-dried organic strawberries. They cost a penny, uh but happy to offer that to you all,
Speaker A
and it's also, in addition to being really tasty and pleasing to drink, especially iced on a hot day, it's good for your immune system, and if you're getting sick, you can also drink this and it'll help you recover from that
Speaker A
faster. So, it does a lot of things all in one. We're offering that. Um just wanted to bring that to your attention considering that we have this heat wave coming through uh the United States soon. So, you should pick it up now
Speaker A
rather than later, and we'll get that shipped out hopefully on Monday. If you're watching this on Saturday, the 27th. But, in general, we ship things out very, very quickly. So, again, the code is aloha5 for 5% off till the end
Speaker A
of June in honor of the 50th lava fountain episode here from Kilauea, uh which has been so much fun to track over the past um That's right, we want this one.
Speaker A
Not that one. Which has been so much fun to track over the past year and a half. We've been live streaming almost all of them. I am sorry that I missed episode 49. I was uh busy when it happened, and I was bummed
Speaker A
because that's the episode where we had all the crazy lava tornadoes. So, but uh I was able to get some footage A from USGS, but then also my friend on the Big Island, he uh not only goes and photographs and videos them, he
Speaker A
sells that artwork. Um so, really incredible stuff happening at Kilauea, one of the world's most active Well, the world's most active volcano right now.
Speaker A
Uh the Hawaiian hotspot, by many estimates, is the world's largest mantle plume and hotspot.
Speaker A
There's some people that, you know, different definitions and ideas, but it's right up there in the top three, which would arguably be Iceland, Hawaii, and African super plume.
Speaker A
So, it's right up there and it really is a barometer telling you what's happening with the inner Earth. So, the fact that we've had 50 episodes now in a year and a half, really tells you that there's some
Speaker A
changes occurring in the deeper Earth. This doesn't mean it's the end of the world, which a lot of people seem to think it's happening right now.
Speaker A
And kind of understandably, considering Venezuela. It's not the end of the world though. Um it's just what the Earth does. You go through these rhythms of activity. So, really incredible stuff. And um we're right now in the planning stage,
Speaker A
by the way, for an event on the Big Island in September. So, it's 97% chance it happens. Things are starting to come together. We're hoping to start selling tickets in July.
Speaker A
So, stay up-to-date on that. But, as of right now, I can't confirm that we're doing this, but we'll be on the Big Island in the later part of September with an awesome multi-day event.
Speaker A
And we're hoping to do a field trip to the volcano and to time it such that we can all see it. So, that'll be really cool. I'm having a good feeling about that. Um but, we'll we'll find out if it uh
Speaker A
happens or not. We'll only find out in September. So, uh yeah, but it looks like this eruption's going to continue on for a bit longer. Let me get a refresh and see what the latest message is from the USGS
Speaker A
on Kilauea. It's the same message as before. I can put that back up for you here.
Speaker A
And that is that the north vent fountain peaked between 11:00 and 12:00 uh noon Hawaii Standard Time. And now the fountain's about 700 ft or 210 m high, feeding a plume cloud to about 17,000 feet or 5,000 m
Speaker A
above sea level that's being blown to the southwest. So, there could be Pele's hair, tephra, and ash that are coming down to the southwest of Kilauea.
Speaker A
Thankfully though, actually yeah, that's actually hitting quite a few people. So, I'm not sure how serious it was. They did have a message earlier saying to watch out for that, but that's not their current message right now.
Speaker A
Um looks like a lot of this stuff is being lofted up. But, regardless um episode 50, it's here. It's been fun.
Speaker A
So, uh thank you all for joining in. I'm going to sign off, but the live stream will keep going. And um yeah, we have full moon coming up, too.
Speaker A
So, enjoy the full moon. We have some big planetary geometry coming up beginning of July. I'll discuss that in a future update. And I also have a uh kind of a report update on Venezuela coming out tomorrow, I think. I recorded
Speaker A
it this uh afternoon. And a lot of people have been asking for like a shorter update on what happened with Venezuela and kind of what to expect going forward cuz all the updates I've done have been longer live streams.
Speaker A
So, I do have a a video report coming out on that, hopefully tomorrow. Wishing you all well. Thank you all, and I'll see you all again in another video.
Speaker A
Mhm. Mhm.
Topics:KilaueaHawaii volcano eruptionlava fountainslava tornadoesHalemaʻumaʻu cratervolcanic activityUSGS monitoringPahala Sill Complexvolcanic seismicitysolar cycle volcanic influence
