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The Honolulu Advertiser

Updated at 10:21 p.m., Sunday, June 17, 2007

Officials meet Monday on reopening Volcanoes park

By Kevin Dayton
Advertiser Staff Writer

Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park officials will meet Monday morning at 8 a.m. to discuss whether to reopen park areas closed today following a series of more than 260 small earthquakes.

A "swarm" of shallow, relatively small earthquakes jolted the upper East Rift Zone of Kilauea Volcano today, prompting the National Park Service to evacuate tourists and campers on the chance that the quakes might signal a dramatic, unexpected change in the ongoing eruption.

Chain of Craters Road, Hilina Pali Road and much of Crater Rim Drive will remain closed through the night, park spokeswoman Mardie Lane said.

For updates on park road closures, call (808) 985-6000 or visit www.nps.gov/havo.

Jim Kauahikaua, scientist-in-charge of the U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, said the earthquake swarm began at 2:15 a.m., and said there had been small earthquakes about every minute or starting at about 6 a.m.

"It looks like the rift has expanded a bit, possibly to accommodate magma, and the earthquakes are accompanying that process," Kauahikaua said. "It's kind of going on for a long time, but we're keeping an eye on it." An intrusion of lava into new underground cavities in the volcano could cause the magma to escape to the surface at a new, unexpected area of Kilauea, Kauahikaua said.

To guard against that possibility, Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park closed the Chain of Craters Road that gives park visitors access to the area where the ongoing lava flows pour into the sea.

The park service also closed Crater Rim Drive is between Jaggar museum and the Thurston lava tube parking lot on the chance that a new flow could also put that area at risk.

Park service staff swept both roads to evacuate visitors, USGS said in an announcement. The first 70 earthquakes occurred during the two hours beginning at 2:15 a.m. Sunday. The earthquakes are centered about a mile southwest of Mauna Ulu, and were concentrated between one and two miles deep.

As of 4:30 a.m., 10 of the quakes were larger than magnitude 3, and some had been felt by nearby residents.

Kauahikaua said the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory is watching the situation closely, and deployed field crews to the area to more closely monitor the changes at the volcano. There are several possible outcomes of the earthquakes, he said.

"The most dramatic would be some sort of surface breakout of lava here near Mauna Ulu," Kauahikaua said. "The best would be, of course, that it's just going to remain underground, and it would be a very interesting Father's Day morning." Kauahikaua said the earthquakes are coming so close together that USGS instruments were combining the magnitudes of the some of the temblors and overstating the size of some of the quakes. In one case the instruments incorrectly reported a quake of a magnitude of greater than 5, he said.

Reach Kevin Dayton at kdayton@honoluluadvertiser.com.