Volcweb: A new public tool for exploring earthquakes on Hawaii

Figure Caption: The Volcweb interface offers a wide range of ways to view seismic data from Hawaii.

VOLCANO WATCH – 08 March 2012

Recently the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) launched Volcweb, an interactive portal for exploring earthquake information on the Hawaiian Islands. This interface provides the public significantly expanded access, not only to earthquake information, but also to continuous seismic data for each station operated by HVO.

The old Web pages, found at tux.wr.usgs.gov, have been working faithfully for more than a decade and were used at several other seismic networks across the country to display earthquake information. Since the old Web pages were developed, several online mapping tools (e.g., Google Maps) have become available to make map data exploration much more flexible and interactive. Volcweb combines these tools with a design specifically for volcanic environments to give the user rapid access to more information than was previously possible.

Volcweb is divided into three pieces. The front page (hvo.wr.usgs.gov/earthquakes/new) should be the most familiar to those individuals comfortable with the old Web pages. The new map initially has the same boundaries, time span, and earthquake color scheme as the old maps. In addition, this new page has the capability of coloring the earthquakes, based on depth, and of selectively viewing earthquakes in limited-magnitude ranges. With a user-defined line segment, one can also plot a cross section of seismicity (distance versus earthquake depth), time versus depth, cumulative number of earthquakes, and cumulative magnitude of earthquakes that fall within a selectable distance of the line segment.

The second part of the website displays webicorders for each station that HVO maintains (select “webicorders” on the left side of the Volcweb display). A webicorder is a continuous plot of seismicity that commonly spans many hours and is the digital version of a drum helicorder. It is read much like the pages of a book and is a useful way of quickly looking at the activity at a particular seismometer. On the Volcweb webicorders page, each seismometer is located on a Google map of Hawaii Island. Users can identify stations closest to a point of interest, such as their house, and select it to see a webicorder record of recent seismicity there. Continuous data for the last three days are available and updated approximately every 10 minutes.

When interpreting webicorders, it is important to note that seismometers are very sensitive to a variety of cultural and atmospheric noise (people walking, nearby construction, helicopters, cars, wind and thunder). Because of this, only signals that show up on two or more stations should be considered seismically significant.

The third part of Volcweb brings together earthquake hypocenters and continuous seismic data into one place. On the Volcweb website, each active Hawaii volcano has its own page, selectable in a panel on the lower left corner, from which the user can look at seismic hypocenters up to one year old. Having access to such a long time period of seismic data is a significant improvement over the old Web pages and gives the user a longer perspective of the seismicity in a given region than that available on the older pages. All of the new tools on the front page of Volcweb are available in the individual volcano view.

On the individual volcano pages, the user can view the continuous seismic data from HVO seismometers by toggling to view the stations (upper left). For volcanoes, the range of seismic activity is often not fully represented by the earthquakes plotted in this interface. In particular, the occurrence of seismic tremor is not well represented on a plot of individual earthquakes; however, variations in tremor are often conspicuous on webicorders from stations surrounding lava lakes at Halemaumau and Puu Oo. Local earthquakes that are too small to be accurately located may be visible in the webicorders.

Taken together, the suite of tools provided by Volcweb provide the amateur seismologist or volcanologist with many of the same basic tools that seismologists at HVO use to understand volcanic and tectonic processes. HVO looks forward to your comments and suggestions at hvowebmaster@usgs.gov.

Kilauea activity update

A lava lake present within the Halemaumau Overlook vent during the past week resulted in night-time glow that was visible from the Jaggar Museum overlook. The lake, which is normally about 295–377 feet below the floor of Halemaumau Crater and visible by HVO’s webcam, rose and fell slightly during the week in response to a series of large deflation-inflation cycles.

On Kilauea’s east rift zone, surface lava flows were advancing slowly down the pali over the past week, through Royal Gardens subdivision. On March 2, the last occupied structure in Royal Gardens was destroyed by the flow. Lava also reached the base of the pali over the past week, and flows have been active in the upper portion of the coastal plain. As of Thursday, the flows were still about about two miles from the coast, and there was no active ocean entry.

One earthquake beneath Hawaii Island was reported felt this past week. A magnitude-2.0 occurred at 4:38 p.m., HST, on Monday, and was located eight miles southwest of Waikoloa Village at a depth of 23 miles.

Visit the HVO website (hvo.wr.usgs.gov) for detailed Kilauea and Mauna Loa activity updates, recent volcano photos, recent earthquakes, and more; call 967-8862 for a Kilauea summary; email questions to askHVO@usgs.gov.

Volcano Watch is a weekly article and activity update written by scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.