Qualla: Hawaiian Volcano Observatory

Hawaiian Volcano Observatory: Introduction

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NPS Photo, Public domain. The first seismometers were designed by a Japanese professor and installed in a cellar that prison inmates had dug through 5.5 feet of volcanic ash. The cellar sat next to a hotel on the rim of an active volcano. This was 1912, and Thomas Jaggar, a geologist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, had come to Kilauea not to visit but to stay. The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory that he founded would become the world's leading center for the study of active volcanism -- and would eventually be destroyed by the volcano it was built to watch.

Image: NPS Photo | Public domain

Hawaiian Volcano Observatory: A Geologist and a Hotelier

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bamse, CC BY-SA 4.0. When Jaggar gave a lecture in Honolulu in 1909, he was approached by Lorrin A. Thurston, a businessman and grandson of one of the missionaries who had toured Kilauea in 1823. Thurston wanted a permanent scientific observatory at the volcano. George Lycurgus, who owned the Volcano...

Image: Bamse | CC BY-SA 4.0

Hawaiian Volcano Observatory: Surviving Its Own Subject

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ekrem Canli, CC BY-SA 4.0. From 1912 to 1919, Jaggar ran the observatory personally, recording eruptions and earthquakes while coping with the hazards of working inside an active caldera. In 1913, an earthquake cracked a wall and water seeped in. The windows meant to let in natural light turned the vault i...

Image: Ekrem Canli | CC BY-SA 4.0

Hawaiian Volcano Observatory: Eyes on Six Volcanoes

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0. At its peak, HVO monitored six Hawaiian volcanoes from its facilities at Uwekahuna Bluff, the highest point on the rim of Kilauea Caldera: Kilauea and Mauna Loa (the most active), Hualalai, Mauna Kea, Haleakala on Maui, and Kama'ehuakanaloa (formerly Lo'ihi), a submarine volcano ...

Image: Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA | CC BY-SA 2.0

Hawaiian Volcano Observatory: The 2018 Expulsion

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit W Nowicki, CC BY 3.0. On May 10, 2018, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park closed the Kilauea summit area. Explosions, earthquakes, and toxic ash clouds from Halema'uma'u made the observatory's position on the caldera rim untenable. The summit collapse events that followed over the next three months caused...

Image: W Nowicki | CC BY 3.0

Hawaiian Volcano Observatory: A New Beginning in Hilo

Thu, 12 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Famartin, CC BY-SA 4.0. With nearly $70 million in federal relief funds appropriated in 2019, HVO began planning for a future away from the caldera rim. Since 2018, the observatory has operated from temporary offices in Hilo, 30 miles from the summit. A new field office within Hawaii Volcanoes National ...

Image: Famartin | CC BY-SA 4.0