Eruptions Newsletter #12 for May 30, 2025

I have some exciting news coming out next week, so stay tuned! This week’s newsletter will be a little short as it is the end of school for the kids and I’ve been working on the previously mentioned “exciting news”.

Activity News

Kīlauea, Hawai’i

Kīlauea had its 23rd episode of the current eruption cycle on May 25, but it was brief. After vigorous fountaining from the Halema‘uma‘u Crater vent, the eruption ended after a mere 6 hours. The lava fountain reached (video link) as high as ~300 meters (~1,000 feet) during episode 23 (see the image, above) and generated more lava flows that continued to pave the crater floor with new basalt.

Even after this brief episode, all indications point towards continued on/off eruptions at Kīlauea. After episode ended, the summit continued to inflate, suggesting magma rising into the summit magma chamber. The Hawai’i Volcano Observatory said that it is likely, based on the activity so far this year, a new eruption will happen over the next 3-7 days (so, that would mean May 30-June 5).

In a bit of volcano research linked to Kīlauea, a new study by Nils Messling and colleagues in Nature showed that the isotopic composition of lavas erupted at the volcano likely contain the signature of the planet’s core. This is a surprise as the core is a long way down! You’d have to drill down ~2,900 kilometers (~1,800 miles) before you’d reach the core. However, the mantle plume that feeds volcanism at Hawai’i is potentially sourced at the boundary between the core and mantle, so it might not be that surprising that tungsten, ruthenium, gold and other core-friendly elements are found in Hawaiian lavas.

Spurr, Alaska
Great Sitkin, Alaska

Across the Pacific Ocean, the unrest at Mount Spurr near Anchorage appears to be waning at the moment. The Alaska Volcano Observatory thinks this indicates that the likelihood of an eruption has decreased. This might have been an intrusion of magma that didn’t have enough “oomph” to trigger an eruption.

The only volcano actively erupting in Alaska right now is Great Sitkin, where a small lava dome continues to be extruded. However, the lava is erupting at such a sluggish pace that it doesn’t even really show up as a thermal anomaly on many satellite infrared images. You can see some steaming from the lava dome in recent Sentinel-2 satellite shots (below).

Volcano Word of the Week

Pancake Dome

This week’s Volcano Word takes us off world. Pancake dome is the term used for some weird volcanic features currently only known to exist on Venus. These large, flat-but-steep-sided edifices look, well, like flapjacks (see the image above).

On Earth, we do have some squat, dome-like volcanic features. Usually these are rhyolite domes composed of sticky lava rich in silicon. This lava is so viscous that many rhyolite flows only move centimeters per day. They build up steep sides, sometimes over 50 meters tall, and slowly grow outward from the volcanic vent. One of the closest in my mind to the Venusian pancake dome might be the Big Obsidian Flow (yes, that’s its real name) on Newberry in Oregon (see below).

One of the first interpretations of the pancake domes on Venus was they, too, were made of high silica lava like rhyolite. A recent study in the Journal of Geophysical Research - Planets by Madison Borelli and colleagues looked at these domes using Magellan radar images of the planet’s surface. They found that many of the pancake domes formed on flexible crust, which lead to some interesting observations and modelling that might help constrain the composition of lava erupted to form these pancakes.

Cracks in the crust around some of the domes suggest that the ground beneath the sags due to the mass of the lava. Their models suggest that the sagging would need magma with a density of 2,300-2,700 kilograms per cubic meter, putting the potential composition (based on Earthly lava at least) between andesite (moderate silicon) and rhyolite (high silicon).

So, the pancake domes on Venus might actually a very rare case of extraterrestrial andesite to rhyolite. Pretty much every other planet or moon where we find volcanism, that activity is confined to low silicon basalt (like what Earth has in Hawai’i). The fact that Venus might have produced lava with higher silicon in its fact could betray some very Earth-like processes at work.

Odds & Ends

Not much this week, but I swear, if I read another headline saying a volcano “erupts gold”, I can’t be held responsible for my action. First, all volcanoes erupt gold in the sense that lava has small amounts (parts per billion) gold. Second, this isn’t gold erupting like rivers of metal. It is incorporated into minerals or volcanic glass … and again, at very low levels. So, stop it.

Sounds of the Week

I am a child of the 90s. Ok, better said, I was a teen of the 90s. This means that there are a lot of bands from that decade that have been forgotten that I feel the duty to remind people. So here are a few songs from bands I frankly don’t hear enough about these days.

Grant Lee Buffalo’s “Mockingbirds” is one of those 1990s songs that doesn’t really sound like a 1990s song. Maybe an early 1970s song? It never really fit in with the post-grunge sound on most alternative ratio stations but dang it, Grant Lee Phillips voice is so haunting.

I admit, I don’t know much about Flin Flon. However, their album cover from 1998 is a geologic map. They appear to be a named after a town in Manitoba or the fictional character that town is named after (Josiah Flintabbatey Flonatin). And “Kamloops” is a city in British Columbia. Lots of Canada considering the band is from D.C.

I saw the Smoking Popes in a tiny club somewhere in the five boroughs of New York back in 1998. You better believe that Josh Caterer’s voice is as cool live as it is on record. I am still highly highly amused that, at the time, lots of people compared it to Morrissey’s voice … which led to Moz calling the Smoking Popes one of his favorite bands.

Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Feel free to send me a note or follow me on Bluesky (@erikklemetti.bsky.social).