Off the coast of the island of Hawaii, lava is flowing into the ocean like blood from a ruptured artery. From the Kilauea volcano’s
Kamokuna ocean entry, it hits the salty water and explodes. Molten rock
shoots upward and outward. A steamy cloud of acid rises from below.
Beneath the ocean’s surface, lava cools. Rubble forms.
Normally
it stacks up, creating a rocky shelf on which the lava settles: a lava
delta. But this time, the flow has continued to gush nearly 100 feet
down, into the sea, for a whole month.
This same volcano has sent lava traveling through tubes from moving vents along its eastern rift zone, Pu’u O’o,
ever since it erupted 34 years ago. And these tubes have carried it to a
number of spots along the ocean. But such streams usually last just a
day or two; this one has been going since New Year’s Eve, when 21 acres
of lava delta collapsed into the ocean, exposing the tube.
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