[Rockhounds] The Source of The World's Most Active Volcano Might Finally Be Pinpointed

[Kreigh Tomaszewski]

The Kīlauea volcano in Hawaii is said to be the world's most active
volcano, and yet we still don't really know how it was born.

New research suggests the original womb of magma lies more than 90
kilometers beneath the hotspot. While previous studies
<https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/more-than-one-magma-chamber-found-to-feed-hawaii-s-kilauea-volcano/>
have
found two shallow chambers of magma beneath Kīlauea, they weren't big
enough to explain all the liquid rock this volcano spews.

A larger chamber, about 11 kilometers deep
<https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140129114925.htm> (that's
6.8 miles), was detected using seismic waves in 2014, and yet now it seems
the original magma chamber lies even deeper.

A new analysis of broken fragments of ancient volcanic rock, dredged from
the south-eastern flank of the Big Island, suggest Kīlauea was born from a
pool of pyroclastic material close to 100 kilometers deep.

Sometime between 210,000 and 280,000 years ago
<https://www.usgs.gov/volcanoes/kilauea/geology-and-history>, the Pacific
tectonic plate shifted and a plume of magma rushed upwards into the sea. As
the piping hot liquid cooled and solidified, it formed a large 'shield
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shield_volcano>' that burst through the
waves about 100,000 years ago
<https://www.vulkane.net/en/volcanoes/kilauea/kilauea.html>.

So Kīlauea came to be, but the original rocks ejected from this hotspot are
incredibly hard to find, buried as they are beneath numerous layers of
newer lava. The igneous rock dredged up in the current study provides an
unprecedented glimpse into the volcano's deep and distant past.

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-might-have-figured-out-the-source-of-the-world-s-most-active-volcano