In 2018, the thirty-five year eruption of Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano came to an explosive end. In two months, hundreds of homes were destroyed and over 35 square kilometres of land had been covered in lava.
At the time, scientists weren’t exactly sure why the constant but low-level eruption had suddenly turned violent. However, there’s now evidence that this could be the result of heavy rain.
Early 2018 was an incredibly wet few months for Hawaii. At one point, an island near Kilauea recorded over a metre of rainfall in a single day – an all time US record.
All this water has to go somewhere, and a lot of it ended up soaking into the porous rock surrounding the volcano. Using computer simulations, the researchers found that this would have increased the pressure in the volcano, possibly enough to trigger an eruption. This mightn’t be the first time, either – they also found that more than half of Kilauea’s eruptions occur during Hawaii’s wet season.
Lachlan Writes Science 