Scientists monitor earthquake swarm at Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano

February 23, 2012 – HAWAII – There have been 48 small earthquakes and counting on the Big Island as of Wednesday morning. Scientists at the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory are keeping an eye on a swarm of small earthquakes around the active Kilauea volcano. In its morning status report, HVO wrote that there “is an ongoing seismic swarm just northwest of the summit.” A swarm of shallow earthquakes started after midnight last night about 5 km (3 mi) northwest of Halema`uma`u Crater that was ongoing as of this posting. Forty-eight earthquakes were strong enough to be located beneath Kilauea: 39 quakes within the swarm so far at a maximum rate of 6/hr (including a preliminary magnitude-3.4 quake at 6:56 am), two deep quakes beneath the southwest rift zone, two beneath the southeast summit caldera, one within the upper east rift zone, four on south flank faults. Seismic tremor levels were low and dropped slightly during deflation. Most of the quakes have been in the magnitude 2.0 vicinity, but a few reached over 3.0. Seismic activity on the rift zone is not rare, however this number of small earthquakes is high for the present eruptive activity. –Big Island VN