Kilauea: Tiny Gravity Changes Show Magma's Underground Movements

Kilauea's current eruption is still going strong after 29 years.

CREDIT: USGS/HVO.

The secret movements of magma deep inside a volcano can be detected by tracking the subtle changes in gravity they cause.

Surprising readings from a Hawaiian volcano have researchers hoping to better understand volcanic activity through gravity monitoring.

Continuous gravity measurements of active volcanoes are relatively rare, with most results coming from Mount Etna in Italy.

"One problem is the expense," researcher Michael Poland, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, explained.

"Gravity measurements have always been a really expensive endeavor. The big users are oil and mining companies."

Now scientists have monitored the gravity at Kīlauea, a popular tourist destination on Hawaii's Big Island, and discovered a regular cycle of fluctuations that suggest magma is churning a kilometer (0.6 miles) below the surface.

The way magma churns in underground chambers below volcanic vents is key to understanding how persistent volcanoes are, and whether or not they might catastrophically erupt in the future.

However, what goes on deep under the Earth's surface is difficult to monitor.

One way to peer underground is by looking at Earth's gravity, the researchers said. Anything that has mass has a gravity field that pulls objects toward it.

The strength of this field depends on the amount of mass. Since the Earth's mass is not spread out evenly, this means the strength of the planet's gravitational pull is stronger in some places and weaker in others.

As such, the flow of magma from one place to another can be detected from above.

Most active volcano

"Kīlauea is the world's most active volcano," Poland said. "It's erupted almost continuously since 1983. It's a natural 'lab volcano' ―a great place to try and study something like gravity measurements."

The researchers installed two continuous gravity meters at the summit of the volcano in 2010. One was about 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) northwest of the eruptive vent at the summit and recorded measurements every10 seconds, while the other was placed about 500 feet (150 meters) east and recorded data every second.

They detected gravity fluctuations that came in a cycle about 150 seconds long.

"There was no expectation for that kind of result," Poland reported. "That gravity oscillation came out of nowhere. It points to the idea that there's probably a lot of things going on in volcanoes, glaciers, wherever you look, but we haven't developed the tools to detect these sorts of things."

Lava Flows: Kilauea volcanic eruption

Lava Spew

Credit: NASA

Kilauea continues to earn its reputation as one of Earth's most active volcanoes. Since January 1983, Kilauea has erupted continuously, coating much of the southeast coast of Hawaii's Big Island in fresh lava, which glows red in this satellite image.

The center of the eruption is Pu'u O'o — a crater southeast of Kilauea's summit.

From here, the molten rock flows through lava tubes down Kilauea's steep slopes. The lava emerges on the pali (a Hawaiian word for cliff) and on the coastal plain, further down the mountainside.

NASA: Earth Observation of Volcanic Activity at Kilauea

Volcanic Activity at Kilauea

Volcanic fog—vog—swirls around the Hawaiian Islands in this satellite image. Vog is formed when sulphur dioxide gas emitted from a volcano reacts with oxygen and water vapour.


The reactions form tiny drops of sulphuric acid and other sulfates, which create a visible haze. Since March 12, 2008, emissions of sulphur dioxide (the gas that forms vog) from Kilauea volcano have been elevated: 800 metric tons (1,800,000 pounds) per day in early December 2009, compared to a 140 metric ton per day (310,000 pounds) average from 2003–2007.

The (MRIS) Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer