DOCUMENTING THE 2008-2009 SUMMIT ERUPTION OF KILAUEA VOLCANO, HAWAI`I WITH TIME-LAPSE PHOTOGRAPHY

After a 26-year hiatus in eruptive activity at the summit of Kīlauea Volcano, a new eruption began with the explosive widening of a small gas vent within the Halema‘uma‘u pit crater in March 2008. The eruptive vent, initially about 30 m in diameter, has since grown to more than 130 m across as the result of hundreds of collapses of the vent walls and rim. While most collapses did little more than produce an ashy plume, significant vent-widening collapses preceded five of seven subsequent explosions that rocked the summit region. Time-lapse photography has been an important research and monitoring tool utilized by the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory at Kilauea for the last several decades, and its use during the current summit eruption is no exception. Time-lapse camera systems were deployed prior to the start of the eruption and have documented the evolution of the vent into a collapse crater. The time-lapse images have been used to characterize a range of eruption dynamics, including the timing of discrete collapse events, changes to vent dimensions through time, the abundance of ashy plumes produced by rock falls within the vent, and plume height. In addition, cameras perched on the rim of Halema`uma`u Crater directly above the vent have been used to correlate changes in lava level and vigor with seismicity and other geophysical data. While time-lapse imagery is of proven utility in monitoring and research, it also serves an important educational role by garnering public interest in volcano science and awareness of volcanic hazards. Movies created from time-lapse images of Kilauea's summit eruption are regularly posted to the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory's public Website to highlight many of the volcano's exciting and unique changes. These, along with still images, serve as a means of rapidly disseminating information to the public while showing the immediate hazard posed by an erupting volcano.