Mauna Loa: world’s largest active volcano erupts

The biggest active volcano in the world has reawakened after laying dormant for almost 40 years – the longest period of inactivity in its history.

“Waves of glowing lava and smoky ash are belching and sputtering” from Mauna Loa, on Hawaii’s Big Island, said Sky News.The eruption began late on Sunday and is the first since 1984.

Scientists had “spent decades anxiously preparing for” Mauna Loa – “Long Mountain” in Hawaiian – to spew back into life, said volcanologist and science writer Dr Robin George Andrews in National Geographic. The eruption hasn’t “immediately” put nearby towns in danger, but residents have been warned to prepare for “worst-case scenarios”, said The Telegraph.

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Despite being “one of the most closely monitored volcanoes on Earth”, wrote Andrews in National Geographic, Mauna Loa “has yet to give up most of its secrets”. All of the previous eruptions have “been novel in some way”, he added, but the current appears to be “sticking to a familiar pattern”, allowing researchers “to breathe a tentative sigh of relief”.

According to the US Geological Survey, the eruption began at the volcano’s summit, before moving towards the rift zone – an area where “mountain rock is cracked and relatively weak”, said The Telegraph, “making it easier for magma to emerge”.

Volcanologist Dr Kenneth Rubin told The New York Times that eruptions from Mauna Loa “tend to be very dynamic in their earliest days”. He added that “conditions on the ground can change fairly quickly”.

Mauna Lao is a “particularly colossal” volcano, covering 2,000 square miles, said Andrews in National Geographic. It is also “hyperactive”, with 33 documented eruptions since written records began in 1843.

Almost all of the previous eruptions occurred before 1950, but the most recent prior to the 1984 eruption was in 1975.

“Warning signs” of the current eruption had “gradually increased since September”, after geologists tracked an “uptick” in earthquake activity that began in June, said Live Science’s Ben Turner.

Experts have warned that the knock-on consequences of the eruption may include disruptions to communication and traffic.

“Volcanic gas, fine ash and thin glass fibers known as Pele’s hair” that may be carried by wind gusts could also pose a threat to the public, said The New York Times.