Kilauea Volcano Update: Slide closes Halema'uma'u vent, possible that increased pressure from the rising magma could reopen the summit vent.

Activity Summary for past 24 hours: The summit vent remains choked with rubble from Tuesday's collapses. Sporadic gas jetting noises were heard coming from the vent late yesterday afternoon, and a few points of incandescence deep in the vent were seen by Webcam overnight. Lava from east rift zone vents continues to flow through tubes to the coast and is entering the ocean at two locations west of Kalapana. Active lava flows are present on the pali in, and adjacent to, the Royal Gardens subdivision. Sulfur dioxide emission rates from the Halema`uma`u and Pu`u `O`o vents remain elevated.

Past 24 hours at Kilauea summit: Aerial observations yesterday morning, and views from the ground with a thermal camera last night, confirmed that the throat of the vent in Halema`uma`u crater had been choked with debris from Tuesday's collapses. By late yesterday afternoon, sporadic gas jetting sounds from the vent were heard by geologists on the rim of Halema`uma`u Crater. Overnight, the Webcam on the rim of Halema`uma`u Crater recorded a few points of incandescence, waxing and waning in brightness, deep within the vent.

Seismic tremor amplitudes, which dropped following the summit vent collapses, remain low. In contrast, the number of RB2S2BL earthquakes recorded at the summit is about 3 times the pre-collapse level. Episodic tremor continues with tremor bursts of about 1-minute duration occurring about 12 minutes apart. In the past 24 hours, 11 earthquakes have been located beneath Kilauea's caldera, most at very shallow levels.

DI inflation at the summit, which began at about 2:20 AM on Tuesday morning, flattened and appears to have peaked this morning. The GPS network (less sensitive than the tiltmeter network) recorded about 1 cm of contraction across the caldera over the past 3 months.

On Thursday morning, the summit plume is small and wispy and drifting to the southwest. Sulfur dioxide emission rates remain elevated and variable; the most recent measurement, taken before the recent collapses and the change to the appearance of the plume, was 800 tonnes/day on June 26, compared to the 2003-2007 average rate of 140 tonnes/day. The weak plume carried only a small amount of mostly ash-sized tephra from the vent. All appears to be lithic rock dust and recycled juvenile material with no hair or spherules. The vent was still relatively quiet this morning, with only a few sporadic small rock falls and slides heard during the ash collection.