Living on an active volcano assures a life of dynamic surprises, with constant reminders of the primal power and beauty of our planet. This past year has been no exception. Since last fall, we’ve had three spectacular eruptions on Kilauea—in September 2023, June 2024, and September 2024—each uniquely reflecting the potent handiwork of the Hawaiian volcano goddess Pelehonuamea. Here’s a photo-rich log of what’s been happening.
All photos by Tom Peek unless otherwise credited.
Lava fountains inside Halemaʻumaʻu on September 10, 2023.
September 2023: A grand finale at Halemaʻumaʻu’s lava lake . . .
After the devastating East Rift eruption in 2018 that caused the collapse of Kilauea’s summit caldera (Kaluapele), Pele began refilling the 1,500-foot chasm left by that collapse with a series of breathtaking summit eruptions inside Halemaʻumaʻu, starting in September 2021. The grand finale of that series of events occurred two years later, on September 10, 2023. And Catherine and I were there to witness it.
On the afternoon of September 1o, Catherine and I counted at least 30 lava fountains, some as high as 60-80 feet, erupting atop the now vast lava lake at Halemaʻumaʻu.
Pele dancing on the afternoon of September 10, 2023.
By nighttime, hundreds of onlookers had gathered on the caldera rim to watch the spectacle—bodies aglow in Pele’s auburn light—including Tom’s wife, Volcano artist Catherine Robbins. By then, lava had also broken out on the eastern wall of Halemaʻumaʻu, spilling out a massive lava river across that side of the collapsed floor of the caldera.
The lake continued to erupt for a total of six days, then ceased, and the crater floor fell quiet, leaving only remnant fumes and warm steam as evidence that the goddess was still at home. MEANWHILE, beneath the surface of the summit region, she remained active, steadily lodging magma under the volcano’s Southwest and Upper East Rift zones, dramatically cracking the surface here and there, but not erupting . . . yet.
June 2024: Kilauea erupts in the remote Kaʻu Desert . . .
After months of building underground—filling Kilauea’s upper slopes with magma—Pele finally broke the surface in the wee hours of June 3, opening up several fissures in the Southwest Rift Zone’s remote Kaʻu Desert, spewing lava from numerous fountains into the star-studded night! Catherine and I, having closely monitored the seismic and tilt data on the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) website, dashed up to the summit shortly after lava broke the surface.
Kilauea erupts a mile below and west of Halema’uma’u in the remote Ka’u Desert on June 3. This is the view from near the now demolished buildings of the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and the national park’s Jaggar Museum.
Following the bright glow, we trekked to a distant spot west of Uekahuna and the partially demolished buildings of HVO’s headquarters and the national park’s Jaggar Museum (shaken to ruins during the 2018 caldera collapse and since removed). Below us, a mile downslope of Halema’uma’u, numerous fountains spewed lava into the star-studded night! Luminescent plumes of gas rose beneath the constellation Scorpio (see photo above). It was the first time in two decades that Pele was dancing as lava in the remote Ka’u Desert.
The predawn view of the Kaʻu Desert fissures from about 6,000 feet up the slopes of Mauna Loa inside Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park, where Tom and Catherine had gathered with a small clutch of mostly local residents.
After some minutes, we decided to see what all this looked like from a higher elevation, and we headed up the narrow, winding road leading to the Mauna Loa trailhead inside the national park. The long, slow drive took the better part of an hour to reach a spot where we’d watched volcanic and celestial events before. From our perch almost 2,000 feet above the eruption we watch its dynamic fissures fountain and their lava streams flow.
Among those watching that morning from Mauna Loa was the celebrated former interpretive park ranger Jay Robinson (left). In addition to taking photographs, Jay, using a high-powered spotting scope, kindly and expertly helped a family from the continent appreciate the marvel they were witnessing. Photo by Catherine Robbins.
The dynamic fissure fountains evolved that morning, varying in location and intensity as dawn broke across the volcano.
The eruption lasted only a few hours. Again, Pele moved underground, busily building the mountain with months of dramatic ground deformation, numerous earthquake swarms in the Southwest and Upper East Rift Zones, more surface cracking, and occasional road and trail closures by park officials out of elevated concern that an eruption was imminent.
September 2024: Pele returns to the Upper East Rift . . .
After nearly three months of unrest, on the night of Sunday, September 15, Pele reemerged eight miles from the summit, but this time in the Upper East Rift Zone near Napau Crater. At first it was a small, brief eruption—burying just four acres—and it happened under the cover of darkness and heavy rain. No one saw the glow, but instruments at HVO and the odor of sulfur detected by Volcano Village residents indicated something was afoot.
Seismicity in the Upper East Rift Zone had increased for months—with periods of hundreds of earthquakes—and again heightened on the evening before the eruption near Napau Crater.
The next morning a helicopter flyover by HVO scientists revealed the now paused eruption—two fuming fissures and the cooling lava they’d disgorged. This marked the first eruption on Kilauea’s East Rift Zone since the 2018 fissures and flows that devastated much of the island’s Puna District, wiping out more than 700 homes in subdivisions built by land speculators after Hawaiʻi’s statehood in 1959. So the eruption being short-lived could be a relief. But was it really over?
Volcanologist from the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory flew over Napau Crater on September 17 and caught photos of the fissures that had spread across and above the crater. USGS photo.
No, Pele wasn’t finished. On Monday evening, September 16, she appeared again, erupting lava in the same forested area. And the next day, September 17, she moved right into Napau Crater, forming several spectacular fissures that were caught on video during another HVO flyover. That night Catherine and I headed up to the caldera rim near Uekahuna to look for glow, but again heavy clouds blocked any view! The next night we were more fortunate.
On September 18 new fissures, above and west of Napau Crater, poured rivers of lava into the crater, as seen in the HVO webcam image.
On Wednesday afternoon, September 18, new fissures opened up just west of Napau Crater, creating not only spectacular lava fountains but luminescent cascades of molten rock pouring over the crater rim and onto its vast crater floor. Another HVO flyover and landing caught the spectacle on video.
That night Catherine and I tried again to see if we could experience Pele’s glow. Since the rain and clouds of previous nights had diminished, we headed back into the national park, this time down the Chain of Craters Road to a spot five miles from the eruption. We got there just as the moon rose in the east and before clouds and rain again obscured the scene.
The eruption continued for two more days, covering most of Napau Crater with lava. And on Friday, September 20, the eruption ceased.
The bright glow of the Napau Crater eruption as seen from five miles away on the Chain of Craters Road in Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park. A rising moon and the constellation Cassiopeia are visible in the photograph.
ʻOhiʻa trees silhouetted in Pele’s glow.
As we took our last photos and prepared to head home, a lunar rainbow—legendary in Hawaiʻi—appeared in the western sky, with distant Mauna Loa below it (middle right in the photo).
The future: What’s next . . . ?
Given this past year’s dramatic changes—a rising and expanding lava lake at Halemaʻumaʻu, months of underground mountain building, and rift eruptions outside the caldera—what Pele does next is anyone’s guess. Will she return to her usual summit residence at Halemaʻumaʻu? Or will she continue to erupt on one of the volcano’s rift zones?
A 2003 rendering of Pelehonuamea by Kalapana artist Arthur Johnsen, selected by local Native Hawaiians elders as an appropriate display for the Kilauea Visitors Center in Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park.
Of greatest concern is that she may again migrate back to the East Rift Zone where most of her eruptions have occurred over the past century . . . ever since an explosive summit eruption and caldera collapse in 1924. Those East Rift eruptions generated massive lava flows that devastated villages and subdivisions in Puna during the 1960s, 1980s, 1990s and in 2018, as well as an eruption in the 1970s that buried forests, roads, and facilities in Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park.
Fissure 8 erupts in Lower Puna during the devastating 2018 eruption as seen from across Hilo Bay. Photo by John Dvorak.
As readers of my novel Daughters of Fire well know, the question of where the next Hawaiʻi eruption will be is a matter of both science and metaphysics. What we also know is that humans have no control over what Kilauea does next. So we must be poised to follow the ancient—and oft-proven—advice of Native Hawaiians: “When Pele comes, be respectful . . . and get out of the way.”
A traditional Hawaiian offering (hoʻokupu) left for Pele on the caldera rim, one of numerous such gifts brought to the crater to honor the revered volcano deity.
Video links about Pele that you might enjoy . . .
A wonderful interview about Pele and the Pele dance tradition with Kekuhi Kanahele-Frias.
Halau O Kekuhi dancing to Pele on the caldera rim of Kilauea.
KHON interview about Pele with Professor Kaliko Baker during the 2018 Kilauea eruption.
Tom Peek