The Kiluaea Volcano is an amazing sight to behold. Glowing lava and bellowing plumes leave lifetime impressions, but the best sight to see is an active surface flow. A surface flow is when the flowing lava slowly creeps along the surface of the earth. The surface flows come and go unpredictably and they are flowing now.

Lava flowing on Highway 137, photo from USGS.

On July 17th, lava flows from the Puu Oo Vent covered sections of highway 137 located along the way to the viewing area. Reportedly, the burning asphalt created a plume of thick, black smoke. Flows also pushed through vegetation to the north and south of the access road.

Today, the lava flow continues slowly along highway 137 in Kalapana. If you are on the Big Island, this view is worth the trip.

Lava flowing in brush, photo from USGS

Tags: Big Island, Hawaii, Kalapanao, Kilauea Volcano

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 22nd, 2010 at 7:36 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.