USGS: Map as of 2:00 p.m. HST, June 4, 2018. Given the dynamic nature of Kīlauea’s lower East Rift Zone eruption, with changing vent locations, fissures starting and stopping, and varying rates of lava effusion, map details shown here are accurate as of the date/time noted. Shaded purple areas indicate lava flows erupted in 1840, 1955, 1960, and 2014-2015.

(BIVN) – Janet Babb of the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory gave a detailed update on the activity in the lower East Rift Zone of Kilauea Volcano on Monday, during an 11 a.m. media conference call.

Lava from a vigorously fountaining Fissure 8 entered the ocean at Kapoho Bay overnight. “As of 6:30 a.m. on June 4, lava is constructing a delta in Kapoho Bay extending a few hundred yards into the bay,” USGS wrote this morning. “A laze plume is blowing inland from the ocean entry but dissipating quickly. The lava flow front is about 0.5 miles wide.”

A lava breakout is also occurring upslope of the Kapoho cone cinder pit, USGS said, “with active flows about 330 yards southeast of the intersection of Railroad Avenue and Cinder Road.”

Sluggish lava flows are present in the vicinity of Fissure 18; all other fissures are inactive, USGS reported.

Once again providing video over the lava flow today was Mick Kalber, aboard a hovering Paradise Helicopter. Kalber wrote in an update today:

Kilauea Volcano’s Fissure #8 continues blasting hundreds of feet into the air, sending hot liquid rock downslope some six miles to Kapoho Bay. She entered the water last night and is tearing through the beach community of Kapoho Beach Lots on the Big Island of Hawaii. Home after home is being consumed in the exclusive gated community, as Pele continues her relentless march over the lower Puna area. This is the distal tip of the Leilani Estates lava flow, which began with an eruption in that subdivision just over a month ago. She has now destroyed hundreds of structures, covered miles of roads and blanketed thousands of acres of property. The fissure continues to issue huge volumes of hot rock into a lava river, running across the subdivision and collecting in a gigantic perched pond (storage area), which feeds lava downslope to Kapoho. The flow front has now cut off several roads here, leaving many residents stranded. Road crews are working feverishly to open new routes. Additionally, several fingers of lava are now stretching to the northeast, toward an area known as Waa Waa. She entered Green Lake last Saturday, evaporated the water with her fiery flow, sending a plume skyward, then destroyed houses and other structures in the agricultural area across the street. She continued to Kapoho Beach Lots… Vacationland to the south may be next. Back upslope, earlier flows headed East-Northeast of concern to residents of Nanawale and Hawaiian Beaches/Shores continue to be stalled out… nearly all the activity is now in the channelized river, or oozing out here and there from small breaches in the walls of the pond. That perched pond however, holds a vast amount of lava… and should a major breach occur, could send volumes of red hot lava streaming in almost any direction.

“As I’ve said many times, I’m a volcanographer, NOT a volcanologist,” Kalber added, “so these are merely my personal observations… please take them for what they are worth.”