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Kilauea 2018 lower East Rift Zone eruption - lava flow chronology lines

Metadata Updated: September 15, 2025

The 2018 lower East Rift Zone eruption of Kilauea Volcano began in the late afternoon of 3 May, with fissure 1 opening and erupting lava onto Mohala Street in the Leilani Estates subdivision, part of the lower Puna District of the Island of Hawai'i. For the first week of the eruption, relatively viscous lava flowed only within a kilometer (0.6 miles) of the fissures within Leilani Estates, before activity shifted downrift (east-northeast) and out of the subdivision during mid-May. Around 18 May, activity along the lower East Rift Zone intensified, and fluid lava erupting at higher effusion rates from the downrift fissures reached the ocean within two days. Near the end of May, this more vigorous activity shifted back uprift into Leilani Estates, where fissure 8 reactivated with lava fountains feeding several 'a'a flows. The southernmost flow lobe developed into a well-defined lava channel and reached the ocean at Kapoho Bay - 11 kilometers (7 miles) away - on 3 June. Fissure 8 continued supplying this lava channel for more than two months, constructing an approximately 3.5-square-kilometer (1.4-square-mile) lava delta along the coastline. Over 4 and 5 August, activity at fissure 8 waned and flow in the lava channel came to a halt, only to be followed by weak activity within the vent in late August and early September. By then, the eruption had covered 35.5 square kilometers (13.7 square miles) of the lower Puna District with lava. In this report, the authors have sought to chronicle this sequence of events using geospatial data in the form of an Esri file geodatabase, Esri shapefiles, and Google Earth KMZs.

Access & Use Information

Public: This dataset is intended for public access and use. License: No license information was provided. If this work was prepared by an officer or employee of the United States government as part of that person's official duties it is considered a U.S. Government Work.

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Dates

Metadata Created Date September 12, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 15, 2025

Metadata Source

Harvested from DOI USGS DCAT-US

Additional Metadata

Resource Type Dataset
Metadata Created Date September 12, 2025
Metadata Updated Date September 15, 2025
Publisher U.S. Geological Survey
Maintainer
Identifier http://datainventory.doi.gov/id/dataset/usgs-5ebb4ad482ce25b5136182a3
Data Last Modified 2020-08-31T00:00:00Z
Category geospatial
Public Access Level public
Bureau Code 010:12
Metadata Context https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.jsonld
Metadata Catalog ID https://ddi.doi.gov/usgs-data.json
Schema Version https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema
Catalog Describedby https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
Harvest Object Id 4c76dd52-5862-4567-b4d3-78e5b2d4fbda
Harvest Source Id 2b80d118-ab3a-48ba-bd93-996bbacefac2
Harvest Source Title DOI USGS DCAT-US
Metadata Type geospatial
Old Spatial -154.927282, 19.439980, -154.806382, 19.513735
Source Datajson Identifier True
Source Hash d8082353d5943a5617c3700537f86002b979d49f9ba781ede4a52ed34591864e
Source Schema Version 1.1
Spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": -154.927282, 19.439980, -154.927282, 19.513735, -154.806382, 19.513735, -154.806382, 19.439980, -154.927282, 19.439980}

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