Hawaii (The Big Island), Hawaii, 26 February 2015

We took off to visit the Kilauea Volcano and went along a section of the road with dense overhanging trees.

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Here is the main crater.  You can’t get any closer to it than this, presumably because of potential dangers from gas emissions.  Kilauea has been in continuous eruption since 1983 though involving no more than slow flows of lava and occasional pyrotechnics.  There is a current lava flow from one of the side vents but it is in dense bushland and access is prohibited.  Explosive eruptions did occur in pre-European time though, so it could become more dangerous again.

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Here is a view from further back, giving an idea of the outer crater.  The outer crater was once a huge caldera but eruptions from the inner crater have slowly filled it up over time.  The outer crater floor is actually not flat; it gently slopes away from the inner crater.

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Another view from further away, giving a better idea of the size of the outer crater.

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We are on the Chain of Craters Road down to the coast.  This is the entrance to the Thurston Lava Tube, an impressive tunnel but there were too many people in it to make a photograph practical or worthwhile.  I waited about ten minutes for a clear view here.

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This is a fern hanging down in the entrance of the lava tube (that you can also see in the previous image).

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Down at the coast now, I think this is Holei Sea Arch.

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Driving back up, this is a landscape created by lava flows.

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Here you can see where a recent (black) lava flow has stopped and some grassland survives.

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This is one of the many side vents, not currently active.

I perhaps should have waited until after dark to show you the glow of the main crater of Kilauea but I was running very short of petrol and was more concerned to make it to a nearby petrol station before they may have closed.

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