HONOLULU (KHON2) — The summit of Kilauea saw a swarm of earthquakes and a shallow magma intrusion overnight, and there are changes to how magma reaches the surface.
A series of earthquakes hit the summit of Kilauea late on Tuesday, Sept. 30, and into Wednesday, Oct. 1 — the largest was a magnitude 3.4 — as magma forced its way into new cracks near the surface.
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The scientist in charge at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said the magma is no longer following its usual path to vents that have been active since 2024.
“It’s exploiting some of these weak cracks, so that’s what we’re seeing, is magma moving off into cracks now instead of coming out of the top. So, we’re stuck in kind of a little bit of a limbo state where it can’t quite decide if it wants to come out of the top or go fill these cracks,” Ken Hon said…