Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

High resolution earthquake catalogs from the 2018 Kilauea eruption sequence

Published by U.S. Geological Survey | Department of the Interior | Catalog Last Checked: May 05, 2026 at 07:48 PM | Dataset Last Updated: August 18, 2020 at 12:00 AM
The 2018 Kīlauea eruption and caldera collapse generated intense cycles of seismicity tied to repeated large seismic (Mw ~5) collapse events associated with magma withdrawal from beneath the summit. To gain insight into the underlying dynamics and aid eruption response, we applied waveform-based earthquake detection and double-difference location as the eruption unfolded. Here, we augment these rapid results by grouping events based on patterns of correlation-derived phase polarities across the network. From April 29 to August 6, bracketing the eruption, we used ~2800 events cataloged by the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory to detect and precisely locate 44,000+ earthquakes. Resulting hypocentroids resolve complex, yet coherent structures, concentrated at shallow depths east of Halema‘uma‘u crater, beneath the eventual eastern perimeter of surface collapse. Based on a preponderance of dilatational P-wave first motions and similarities with previously inferred dike structures, we hypothesize that failure was dominated by coupled shear and crack closure.

Resources

2 resources available

Find Related Datasets

data.gov

An official website of the GSA's Technology Transformation Services

Looking for U.S. government information and services?
Visit USA.gov