The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory just published several years’ worth of old “Volcano Watch” articles to its website. I was reading through some old columns, and this paragraph from a column dated February 27, 1992, describing the onset of a new fissure that had opened along the flank of Pu’u ‘O’o in 1992, caught my eye:

Even that will not mark the end of the eruption, as other episodic fissure eruptions will probably occur near Pu`u `O`o as long as the pond remains active inside the cone. After the Pu`u `O`o pond is gone, we anticipate that the eruption will migrate farther uprift. In the long term, the nine-year long eruption is winding down, but the next few years will most likely continue to be marked by episodic activity. [Emphasis added]

Another similar article was published the following month:

Episode 51, like episodes 49 and 50, will probably not be long-lived. We expect the new vent to stop within a few weeks. Activity probably will continue to be episodic and will eventually migrate uprift toward the summit. The long-term prognosis is still that the nine-year eruption is waning, as seen in significantly lower emission of sulfur dioxide gas from the summit than was measured a few years ago.

Again, this was published in 1992, during the eruption’s ninth year. At the time, Hawaiian Volcano Observatory apparently thought the nine-year old eruption was “winding down.” Fast forward twenty-six years and the eruption is still ongoing and the venerable Pu’u ‘O’o still hosts a lava pond.

Given that prior to the Pu’u ‘O’o eruption, the longest recorded historical rift eruption (Mauna Ulu) lasted only four years, it’s not a surprise that geologists thought that after nine years, the eruption was beginning to wane. If we could go back to the point in time when this column was published and tell the writers that the eruption would go on for at least another quarter century, I wonder how they would react?