Lava fountains and flows illuminate the area during the Mauna Loa volcano eruption in Hawaii, U.S. November 30, 2022.
Credit: © Go Nakamura, Reuters/Alamy Images

That’s a whole lotta lava! Mauna Loa, the world’s largest active volcano, erupted on November 27, 2022, and it hasn’t stopped. Mauna Loa is in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the island of Hawaii. It rises 13,677 feet (4,169 meters) from sea level to its peak. That is about 12 Eiffel Towers standing on top of each other! At the top is Mokuaweoweo, a crater. But wait, there is more! The Kilauea, a volcano that lies on the southeastern slope of Mauna Loa, is also erupting. The two volcanoes are creating a dual eruption that has continued since late November.

Mauna Loa, meaning long mountain, spans about half the surface of Hawaii’s Big Island. It covers 10.5 miles from the base to the summit. It hasn’t erupted in 38 years! Most volcanologists consider any volcano that has erupted in the last 10,000 years or so to be active. Some of them use the term dormant to describe an active volcano that is not currently erupting or showing signs of a coming eruption. Volcanologists label a volcano extinct if there is strong evidence it will never erupt again.

Mauna Loa’s continued eruption has shot lava into the sky and down the slope of the mountain. The lava flow is dangerously close to a pivotal highway on the Big Island. Daniel K. Inouye highway connects the eastern and western halves of the island. As the lava flow galumphed at a rate of 40 to 60 feet an hour, officials activated the National Guard to the scene on Tuesday, 9 days after the eruption began. Officials have a plan for shutting down the highway if the lava gets much closer.

Scientists can predict the behavior of volcanic eruptions by looking at past eruptions. There is plenty of data on Kilauea since it has erupted off and on since the mid-1950′s. Kilauea erupted in 2018 engulfing around 700 homes in lava and spewing volcanic ash 30,000 feet into the air. While scientists know what Kilauea is capable of, they do not have much information on Mauna Loa.

Mauna Loa’s longest eruption lasted 18 months in 1855-1856. Most of the lava produced by eruptions comes from rifts (cracks) in the mountain’s sides, not from the peak crater. In 1926, lava destroyed a coastal settlement. Parts of other settlements were buried in 1950. A 1984 eruption sent lava flowing to within 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) of the city of Hilo.

December 27, 2019

A little more than two weeks ago, on December 9, the violent eruption of a volcano on New Zealand’s White Island killed 19 people and severely injured many more. Also known also by its Māori name, Whakaari, White Island is normally uninhabited. It is a popular tourist destination, however, and all of the volcano victims were people visiting the island for the day.

Ash, gas, and smoke billow from a volcanic eruption on White Island off the northern coast of New Zealand on Dec. 9, 2019. Credit: © Michael Schade

White Island is in the Bay of Plenty, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the coast of New Zealand’s North Island. White Island is small, about 1 1/4 miles (2 kilometers) across. The island is the peak of an underwater volcano that rises around 5,200 feet (1,600 meters) from the sea floor. The volcano is extremely active. It has vented gas almost continuously for its recorded history. The volcano also undergoes more violent eruptions spewing lava, ash, and pyroclastic flows (clouds of hot ash and gas that travel mostly along the ground). White Island became popular with volcano scientists and tourists because it is so active and fairly easy to reach.

Click to view larger image
New Zealand.
Credit: WORLD BOOK map

On December 9, the day of the eruption, 47 people were visiting White Island. The volcano erupted with a violent explosion just after 2 p.m. local time, spewing deadly ash and gas some 12,000 feet (3,700 meters) into the air. Soon after the eruption, tourist boats and helicopters rescued many people from the island, but several people had already died and many others had suffered bad burns and other injuries. Of those rescued, three died from their injuries in the days following the eruption. Fifteen of the dead were from Australia. The other four were from New Zealand and the United States.

The British explorer James Cook became the first European to spot White Island, in 1769. The name he gave it may refer to white clouds of volcanic steam rising from the island, or it may refer to a thick, white covering of sea bird guano (waste). A sulfur mine operated on the island from 1885 until 1914, when 12 people died in a landslide at the volcano’s crater. A later mining camp was also abandoned and its remains now serve as a tourist attraction. Thousands of people visit White Island each year, but tourism was suspended after the eruption, pending the results of an investigation into the health and safety practices of tour companies and visitors.

June 8, 2018

At around noon on Sunday, June 3, the Volcán de Fuego (Volcano of Fire) erupted in southern Guatemala, a nation in Central America. The explosive eruption forced a massive ash cloud more than 6 miles (10 kilometers) into the air, blotting out the sun and darkening the immediate area. The volcano also spewed lava and rock, and a super-heated mass of gas and volcanic material known as a pyroclastic flow raced down the volcano’s sides and engulfed nearby communities. Fuego has since continued to erupt, but its intensity has greatly diminished. The Guatemalan military is helping local firefighters, police, and volunteers rescue people trapped in the ashy mud and recover and count the bodies of the dead. Thus far, the volcanic eruption has killed 109 people and injured more than 300 others. Many people remain missing, and thousands of people have been forced from their homes.

On June 4, 2018, residents of the municipality of Alotenango, Gautemala, carry the coffins of people killed in the violent eruption of the nearby Volcán de Fuego. Credit: © Johan Ordonez, AFP/Getty Images

The towns of El Rodeo, Las Lajas, and San Miguel Los Lotes—those closest to Volcán de Fuego—were partially buried beneath volcanic mud and soot. Other areas were hit too as the pyroclastic flow burned and buried the people, homes, and vehicles in its path. Layers of volcanic ash covered nearby Antigua, a colonial city some 27 miles (44 kilometers) southwest of Guatemala City, the nation’s capital. Ash forced the closure of Guatemala City’s La Aurora International Airport, and the government warned of significant amounts of ash and toxic gases in the air. The government also warned of the threat of mudslides, as heavy rains could dislodge solidified volcanic material from Fuego’s steep sides and foothills. Local streams and waterways are clogged with ash, and the toll on area plant and animal life will be significant.

Fuego’s peak soars 12,346 feet (3,763 meters) above sea level. It is a stratovolcano, a tall volcanic mountain that typically has steep sides. Fuego is one of Central America’s most active volcanoes, and it is in a state of near-constant eruption. It has experienced more than 60 significant eruptions since the arrival of Spanish explorers in the area in 1524, but few of the events have resulted in human fatalities. Sunday’s eruption was by far Fuego’s largest and deadliest. The worst eruption in Guatemala’s recorded history took place at the nearby Volcán Santa María in 1902, an event that killed thousands of people.

Guatemala sits on the infamous Ring of Fire, a turbulent zone of frequent seismic and volcanic activity along the islands and continents rimming the Pacific Ocean. Fuego and its neighbor volcano, Acatenango, form a complex known as La Horqueta (The Pitchfork). People hike and climb the summit of the much quieter and safer Acatenango for a view of the constantly rumbling Volcán de Fuego.

May 30, 2018

Earlier this month, on May 3, Kilauea, a large volcano on the “Big Island” of Hawaii, erupted violently and pumped dangerous lava flows near residential neighborhoods, prompting local officials to order emergency evacuations. Since then, dozens of fissures have opened up along the slopes of the volcano, oozing glowing lava or shooting fountains of it high into the air. The volcano has also produced massive columns of smoke and ash and a haze with varying amounts of poisonous gases. As of today, Kilauea’s eruption proceeds without any signs of stopping, and new lava fissures and cracks appear daily.

A massive column of ash and smoke billows from Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano on May 4, 2018, near Pahoa, Hawaii. Credit: U.S. Geological Survey

Volcanologists have used flying drones to monitor Kilauea’s flowing lava as it creeps towards homes and other buildings in the Leilani Estates neighborhood near the town of Pahoa. Hawaii Governor David Ige mobilized the Hawaii National Guard to assist with evacuations and security in the area. So far, 82 homes have been destroyed by lava and around 2,000 residents have been evacuated. Kilauea’s flows have also damaged several other structures, including the Puna Geothermal Venture, a conversion plant that uses heat from volcanic activity to generate electric power.

Lava erupts from a fissure in the Kilauea volcano on May 22, 2018, in Kapoho, Hawaii. Credit: © Mario Tama, Getty Images

Kilauea is one of the world’s most active volcanoes. The current eruption is only the latest of a highly active eruption cycle that began in January 1983. This month’s eruption was preceded by a swarm of small earthquakes caused by the movement of magma beneath Kilauea and the collapse of a volcanic vent in Kilauae’s crater floor. On May 3, 2018, hours after a magnitude-5.0 earthquake, steam and lava spewed from several surface cracks on the eastern side of Hawaii’s Big Island.

Kilauea rises 4,190 feet (1,227 meters) above sea level and constitutes about 14 percent of the land area of the Big Island. Kilauea and massive Mauna Loa are the stars of the area’s Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Kilauea is a shield volcano, a volcanic mountain with broad, gently sloping sides. Shield volcanoes commonly erupt in fountains of lava. The fountains feed lava lakes within a caldera (large crater), and long, often slow-moving flows seep down the volcano’s sides. Repeated eruptions produce layer upon layer of flows. The layers gradually build the slope upwards and outward, forming a shallow, rounded cone. The name shield volcano refers to such a volcano’s broadly curved shape, which resembles a soldier’s shield. Kilauea’s summit caldera contains a lava lake known as Halema`uma`u. In Hawaiian mythology, the molten lake is the home of the volcano goddess, Pele.

Volcanologists are worried about the many fissures that have opened along the eastern slope of Kilauea, spewing lava, smoke, and ash. Some flows reached the Pacific Ocean, where red-hot lava created huge clouds of steam laced with poisonous and stinky sulfur dioxide. Gases from Kilauea have collected into a toxic volcanic smog that has now drifted as far away as Guam and the Mariana Islands, where residents have been warned to limit outdoor activity.

May 29. 2017

This week, Mythic Monday turns to the vast Pacific Ocean and the fiery Polynesian goddess Pele. The passionate, volatile, and capricious goddess of fire, lightning, wind, and volcanoes, Pele (PEH leh) is easily one of the most entertaining characters in the mythology of Hawaii and other Pacific Islands. There are many stories where Pele’s famous fury is ignited—usually from jealousy or arrogance—resulting in spectacular volcanic eruptions or fiery lava flows that leave death and destruction in their wake. But Pele is also known as the “Goddess of the Sacred Land” and “She-who-shapes-the land” for her role in the creation of new land through volcanic eruptions.

The fire goddess Pele, shown here in a wooden sculpture, was worshiped on many islands of Polynesia. The Hawaiians believed she lived in the volcano Kilauea. When the goddess became angry, the volcano erupted. Credit: Wood sculpture with beaten bark cloth, 22 1/2 inches (57 centimeters) high; Museum of Man, Paris

According to Hawaiian myth, Pele resides within Kilauea (kee loh WAY ah), a large active volcano on the island of Hawaii. She is not always home, and the ground shakes whenever she moves from one location to another to visit members of her large family. Pele sometimes appears as an ugly hag with rough skin and red eyes and other times as a beautiful woman. Legends claim that Pele’s face can sometime be seen in Kilauea’s explosive eruptions caused by her furious wrath.

Pele is famous for her fickle temper, and most myths in Hawaii portray her as jealous and spiteful. In one myth, Pele saw the lovely snow goddess, Poli’ahu  (poh lee AH hoo), and became jealous of her beauty. Pele opened up the ground and hurled fire and lava at Poli’ahu. With her snowy cloak on fire, Poli’ahu fled to the top of Mauna Kea, a large volcano neighboring Kilauea. As she ran, Poli’ahu threw snow to cool and harden the lava that Pele threw. Eventually, Pele’s temper cooled and she surrendered Mauna Kea to Poli’ahu and settled in Kilauea herself. This explains why Mauna Kea has a cap of snow while snowless Kilauea spews lava to this day.

In another myth, Pele sent her sister, Hi’iaka (hee ee AH kuh), to retrieve Pele’s lover, a prince from the island of Kauai. Hi’iaka agreed, but only if Pele promised not to harm her beloved lehua (leh HOO uh) groves or her friend Hopoe (HO PO eh). (The lehua is a tree with clusters of bright-red flowers.) Pele agreed, but Hi’iaka was delayed upon discovering that Pele’s lover had died. Hi’iaka spent days chanting over the lover’s body to bring him back to life. Convinced that her sister had stolen her lover, Pele burned the lehua groves, killing Hopoe as well. Upon returning with Kauai’s prince, Hi’iaka was furious to discover her sister had broken her promise. The sisters eventually made peace, and it is said that, as a result, lehua flowers are among the first things to grow on the island’s hardened lava flows.

Even today, tourists to Hawaii must beware the wrath of Pele. According to a popular legend, any visitor who takes a piece of volcanic lava from the Hawaiian Islands risks angering the goddess. The legend warns that anyone who does take a bit of rock from Hawaii as a souvenir will suffer bad luck until the rock is returned to Hawaii and Pele is appeased.

September 29, 2014

Rescue teams searching Japan’s Mount Ontake volcano for missing hikers suspended operations this morning as the volcano continued to shoot gas, ash, and rocks high into the air. The 10,062-foot (3,066-meter) volcano, which is approximately 125 miles (200 kilometers) west of Tokyo, erupted unexpectedly on September 27. At least 36 people died in the eruption, and dozens of others were injured. Some 45 people remain missing. While most of the hundreds of hikers on the volcano on Saturday were able to walk down to safety, others were trapped in a suffocating cloud of volcanic gas and debris rolling down the flanks of the mountain.

Magma (molten rock) forms deep underground and rises toward the surface, left, collecting in a magma chamber. As pressure builds, the chamber breaks open and magma rises through a conduit, right. At openings called vents, the magma erupts as gas, lava, and pyroclasts (rock and ash). Layers of erupted lava and pyroclasts make up the body of a stratovolcano, shown here. (WORLD BOOK illustrations by Jay Bensen)

Television images show Mount Ontake’s upper slopes blanketed in ash, and rescuers report that bodies have been found buried in ash up to 20 inches (50 centimeters) deep. The Japan Meteorological Agency predicts further eruptions and warns that volcanic debris will likely continue to fall in a radius of 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) from the peak. The eruption was preceded by several minor earthquakes, which seismologists did not interpret as harbingers of a major event.

Additional World Book articles:

• Ring of Fire
• Geology 1991 (a Back in Time article)
• The Biggest Eruptions on Earth (a special report)

July 8, 2014

Three previously unknown volcanoes have been found in a region of South Australia known as the Newer Volcanics Province (NVP), researchers from Monash University in Australia reported in the Australian Journal of Earth Sciences. The youngest of the three, Cas Maar, is almost 0.6 mile (1 kilometer) wide and is around 300,000 years old. The other two volcanoes are Jays Hill, which is around 2 million years old, and Burgers Hill, which is about 4 million years old.

Mount Gambier in South Australia (at the lower right, near the border with Victoria) is one of around 400 volcanoes in the Newer Volcanics Province. (World Book map).

The NVP is home to approximately 400 somewhat unusual volcanoes. Nearly all volcanoes form along the edges of tectonic plates. Occasionally, however, volcanoes appear above locations called hot spots that can be far from plate boundaries. The NVP volcanoes are of the hot-spot variety. Another hot spot under the Pacific Ocean created a chain of volcanoes that became the Hawaiian Islands.

Cas Maar is an especially unusual type of volcano; it formed when magma heated groundwater, instantly evaporating the water. Such events cause an explosive eruption of steam, ash, and, sometimes, rock, and are known as phreatic eruptions.The other two newly discovered volcanoes are shield volcanoes. The last eruptions at this site occurred around 5,000 years ago, but the area is still considered active.

Additional World Book article:

• Igneous rock
• Lava
• The Biggest Eruptions on Earth (a Special Report)
• Volcano

April 1, 2014

A single-celled organism that was a glutton for nickel may have played a key role in the most devastating mass extinction in Earth’s history. The Permian Extinction took place some 252 million years ago. It is informally known as “The Great Dying” because at least 90 percent of all living species on Earth perished over the short (geologically speaking) period of about 60,000 years. Even insects, which largely escaped other mass extinctions, were hit hard. Scientific theories for the die-off have included global warming, global cooling, meteorite impacts, disease, blasts of radioactive cosmic rays from space, and–the favorite–massive volcanic eruptions. Volcanoes have come under suspicion because of the Siberian Traps, about 480,000 cubic miles (2 million cubic kilometers) of preserved flood basalts (layers of volcanic rock) dating from the end of the Permian Period in western Siberia. In the longest-known continuous volcanic eruption in Earth’s history, Siberian volcanoes spewed out enough lava to cover Earth to a depth of 10 feet (3 meters).

Now a team of researchers headed by Daniel Rothman of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is arguing that the volcanoes were only “accessories to the crime.” The main cuplrit, they contend, was a group of microbes called Methanosarcina. These methane-producing microbes are archaea, organisms that make up one of three basic divisions of life. According to the researchers, Methanosarcina grew explosively in the oceans, releasing massive amounts of methane. Methane is an even more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide (CO2). In fact, molecule for molecule, methane traps about 25 times as much atmospheric heat as does CO2. The methane from the microbes dramatically changed the chemistry of the atmosphere and the oceans, making Earth’s climate toxic to nearly all species.

Mount Etna is an active volcano on the island of Sicily. Major eruptions of the volcano spew molten lava and endanger nearby villages. The eruption shown here began on July 18, 2001. AP/Wide World

Rothman and his team presented three lines of evidence to support their theory. First, they pointed to a huge increase in CO2 levels in the oceans at the end of the Permian Period. As ocean waters absorbed the CO2, they would have become increasingly acidic. Devastating losses in marine organisms, particularly those with shells, would have resulted. Second, the researchers determined that about 251 million years ago, Methanosarcina picked up a gene from another microbe that enabled it to rapidly convert carbon into methane. Even with practically unlimited amounts of carbon at their disposal, the microbes would still have needed an esssential nutrient–nickel–to support their new lifestyle. According to the scientists, that’s where the Siberian volcanoes came in. Lava from the volcanoes produced the world’s largest nickel deposits. The nickel somehow reached the oceans, causing a feeding frenzy among the microbes. That explosion in atmospheric methane essentially suffocated most of the life on Earth.

After the Permian extinction, life took at least 5 million years to recover–that is, to evolve a wide variety of species. In the oceans, complex mollusks, crustaceans, and fish, which could swim easily from place to place, become more widespread and common. On land, surving plants and animals evolved into a variety of forms, including coniferous trees and insect-eating mammals. The extinctions of Permian animals also paved the way for the dinosaurs.

Additional World Book articles:

• Methane: Another Greenhouse Troublemaker (a Special Report)
• The Biggest Eruptions on Earth (a Special Report)
• The Ocean’s Changing Chemistry: Tipping the Balance? (a Special Report)

December 2, 2013

Hundreds of earthquake tremors recorded by scientists in Antarctica have rocked the geological world by producing evidence of the first active volcano found so far inland on that frozen continent. Numerous volcanoes, both active and extinct, have been found along the Antarctic coastline and on nearby islands.

The earthquake swarms originated about 15 to 25 miles (25 to 40 kilometers) below the surface, near the Executive Committee Range in the Marie Byrd Land region of West Antarctica. The ice in that region is about 0.5-mile (0.8 kilometer) thick. The scientists, led by researchers from Washington University in St. Louis, stressed that they did not detect an actual eruption. Instead, the tremors likely resulted from the fracturing of rock as flowing magma and fluids opened new channels within the volcano. The tremors occurred beneath a 3,200-foot- (1,000-meter-) tall bulge under the ice that may be the cone (peak) of a volcano that formed sometime in the past as lava erupted from the volcano’s vent (opening).

The scientists detected the tremors while towing seismic equipment across the icy surface in 2010 and 2011 to map the structure of Earth’s mantle, the layer between inner core and outer crust. The seismic vibrations the scientists detected in Antarctica were nearly identical to so-called deep, long-period earthquakes (DLP’s) that have been detected beneath volcanoes in Alaska and Washington state. Although DLP’s sometime precede eruptions, scientists do not know if the tremors in Antarctica are signs that an eruption will occur there in the near future.

Volcanoes are common in Antarctica. Some are active, and others are hidden beneath the ice. But most of the known volcanoes are along the coastlines of the continent. © Rod Planck, Photo Researchers

If the volcano was to erupt, some of the ice above the vent would certainly melt, producing millions of gallons (liters) of water. Such a massive infusion of meltwater would speed of flow of nearby ice streams (slowly flowing “rivers” of ice within ice sheets). But unless the eruption was historically massive, it almost certainly would not melt all of the ice above. Scientists stressed that the greatest threat to Antarctica is still climate change. The Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica, for example, is shrinking faster than any other glacier on Earth. It also ranks number one among glaciers whose melting is contributing to the rise of global sea levels.

Additional World Book articles:

• Science in Antarctica
• The Great Meldown

March 26, 2013

Massive volcanic eruptions some 200 million years ago likely caused the extermination of half of all species (kinds of living things) on Earth. A new study recently published in the journal Science appears to confirm that a series of massive volcanic eruptions occurred very close to the time of the End-Triassic Extinction. The End-Triassic Extinction was a widespread die-off of land and sea species, which allowed for the rise of the dinosaurs.

The gigantic eruptions occurred across an area that now stretches from Nova Scotia to Morocco, when the land on Earth was one giant continent called Pangaea. The volcanoes released huge amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that caused global warming and other atmospheric changes. Many species of plants and animals would not have survived this dramatic shift in the chemical makeup of the atmosphere and in temperature.

Earth underwent massive volcanic eruptions some 200 million years ago. (AP/Wide World)

The authors of the new study have dated the volcanic eruptions to 201.5 million years ago, close to the time of the End-Triassic Extinction. Carnegie Tech geologist Terrance Blackburn and his colleagues were able to accurately gauge the time by studying ancient lava flows in modern-day New Jersey, Nova Scotia, and Morocco. They found spores and pollen as well as plant and animal fossils from the Triassic Era in sediment layers underneath the lava flows, but not in layers above them. This suggests that the widespread eruptions and the massive die-off were interconnected.

Pangaea (WORLD BOOK map; based on Paleogeographic Atlas Project data from the University of Chicago)

Geologist Paul Renne, of the Berkeley Geochronology Center, noted that the findings are “a nice confirmation of what we and others have been aware of for some time. The main difference is the dating that they used is more precise than our results were.”

Additional World Book articles:

• The Great Dying (a special report)
• What Has Caused Mass Extinctions? (a special report)