We ’re well into the 2nd month of Kilauea volcano ’s devastating eruption , and thing show no sign of let up . Now , we ’re getting our very first estimate of how much molten rock has poured out of the priming so far . Kilauea has produced at least 113.5 million three-dimensional meters of lava , which is enough to fill up 45,400 Olympic swimming pools or immerse Manhattan nearly seven feet inscrutable .
That figure issue forth good manners of the US Geological Survey ( USGS ) , whichreleased itsestimate on June 7 . allot to Michael Poland , a USGS volcanologist who ’s currently in Hawaii assisting with the response to Kilauea , the authority arrive at the number using several unlike methods .
“ For example , we ’ve been able to map out the topographic change , so that helps in terms of how much [ lava ] has stayed on land , ” Poland recite Earther via email . “ More recently , we ’ve estimated the amount of lava in the feeder line ” which runs northeast from Fissure 8 in Leilani Estates through the community of Kapoho to the ocean .
Poland tell that quantify the duct ’s breadth and the lava ’s velocity and cause some assumptions about its deepness from past flows gives us a pretty practiced initial idea of how much lava Kilauea has layer on the Hawaiian landscape .
Volcanologist Wendy Stovall , also with the USGS , cautioned that the issue is “ by all odds a downhearted estimate , ” in part because the flow ’s heaviness is high in some place than reckoning have assumed , but also because “ a lot of lava has entered the ocean and been stick below ocean level ” since June 6 .
“ We are unable to get an accurate account for that amount , ” Stovall order Earther in an email .
As impressive as nearly 50,000 swimming puddle deserving of lava may sound , it ’s deserving mention that this is relatively small potatoes in geological terms . USGSnotedin a Facebook postal service that it ’s only half the amount of lava that the nearby Mauna Loa volcano spue duringa major 1984 bam .
For an even more unmediated comparability , Kilauea ’s Pu‘u ‘ Ō‘ō crater — which has basically been in a state of unremitting eruption since 1983 — has leak about four three-dimensional kilometers of lava over the 30 - twelvemonth menses since then , allot to the USGS . The recent activity in Kilaeau ’s Lower East Rift Zone has only erupt 0.11 cubic kilometre of lava , albeit over a much short sentence full point .
If you require to put the eruption in a deeper time circumstance , it looks downright shrimpy . As Concord University volcanologist Janine Krippner point out to Earther via Twitter direct substance , the Icelandic volcano of Bárðarbunga produced the expectant known eruption of the Holocene in terms of lava volume , releasing23 cubic kilometersof molten globe . My back - of - the - envelope math say that ’s about 9.5 million Olympic swimming pools .
The eruption is not small in human terms , however . As Kilauea ’s lava flowsblazed a unexampled track of destructionthrough Vacationland and Kapoho last week , entire neighborhoods were immerse . By Friday , anestimated 600 homeshad been put down , making this the most destructive eruption on U.S. ground since Mt. St Helens fellate its top in 1980 , grant to reportingby Reuters .
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