Halema‘uma‘u Eruption Captured from Gemini Observatory at Maunakea

Sunday evening 20 December 2020 around 09:30 pm HST lava vents inside the Halema‘uma‘u Crater, within the larger summit caldera of Kīlauea Volcano on the island of Hawai‘i, opened up. The brightly glowing lava, as well as an erupting ash plume, were captured by one of the weather cameras at the international Gemini Observatory on Maunakea. 

This Cloudcam time-lapse movie starts Sunday evening at 9:21 pm HST and runs until 00:35 am HST Monday morning. The true summit peak of Maunakea itself is directly in front, slightly obscuring the Kīlauea caldera some 50 kilometers (30 miles) away. A few cars are passing by the Gemini Observatory during the time-lapse and are unrelated to the eruption.

According to USGS, a series of smaller earthquakes took place in the hour before around the Kīlauea Volcano, as well as a slightly larger 4.4 magnitude earthquake about an hour after (at 10:36 pm HST) 20 km southeast of the crater.