Monday, November 17, 2025

Monitoring hidden processes beneath Kīlauea could aid eruption forecast

University of Hawaii at Manoa

The massive 2018 eruption of Kīlauea Volcano on Hawai‘i Island lasted for months, destroyed neighborhoods, and was associated with 60,000 earthquakes. A new study led by researchers at the University of Hawai‘i (UH) at Mānoa revealed Kīlauea’s magma system started behaving anomalously about a year before the eruption began. This discovery, made using a unique seismic monitoring method, suggests that tracking these hidden processes could aid eruption prediction and volcanic hazard mitigation.

Scientists have long understood that magma moves within Kīlauea's complex plumbing system, but this study revealed a subtle, long-lasting change that may signal future events. Sin-Mei Wu, assistant professor in the Department of Earth Sciences in the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), collaborated with a team of scientists that included colleagues from the University of Miami and the University of California, San Diego to investigate Kīlauea's internal dynamics leading up to the 2018 eruptions. The team found that about a year before the 2018 eruption, the normal upward flow of magma from the mantle to the summit's shallow reservoirs was disrupted.

“Our hypothesis is that a blockage formed between the volcano’s two summit magma reservoirs, impeding the flow, and pressure began to build beneath Kīlauea's East Rift Zone,” said Wu.

The team also observed that the lava lake inside Halema‘uma‘u crater dropped by about 30 meters--nearly the height of a 10-story building--while pressure in the deeper magma system remained stable.

“It remains unclear whether the unusual behavior we identified was a singular event or part of a recurring pattern that could influence future eruptions,” Wu added. “However, as continuous monitoring data accumulate, we expect to gain increasingly detailed insights into Kīlauea’s inner workings and its long-term behavior.”

After analyzing the data, Wu and colleagues hypothesize that magma was being diverted sideways from the summit and into the horizontal dike system leading toward the rift zone. This atypical pattern lasted for months until a magnitude 5 earthquake on the volcano’s flank likely released the blockage, sending more pressure into the shallow summit system for the subsequent months. From that point, the Kīlauea summit remained disturbed until the start of the massive 2018 eruption.

Using ocean waves to listen to Kīlauea

The team’s discovery was made possible by continuously monitoring Kīlauea with seismic instruments. Seismic waves are vibrations that travel through Earth, carrying information about the material they pass through. Instead of relying on energy from earthquakes, the team utilized seismic energy from a constant, natural source: ocean waves.

“The ocean provides a constant supply of seismic energy, allowing us to track the status of Kīlauea’s magma plumbing system over time, even when there are no noticeable earthquakes or ground deformation,” Wu explained. “When magma moves underground, it changes the pressure within the system and alters the surrounding rock, which we can detect with our monitoring tools.”

The study highlights the importance of the silent processes occurring beneath the surface, which can be revealed by combining seismic analysis with other geological and geophysical observations.

“As a UH Mānoa faculty member dedicated to understanding Kīlauea, my goal is to contribute to volcanic hazard mitigation and support the safety of Hawaiʻi’s residents,” Wu added. “We hope this study, and our future work, will help unravel these fascinating processes.”

The glow of Kīlauea Volcano erupting is visible at night.
Credit
Sin-Mei Wu/ UH

Journal

AGU Advances

DOI

10.1029/2025AV001759

Method of Research

Observational study

Article Title

Seismic velocity monitoring reveals complex magma transport dynamics at Kīlauea Volcano prior to the 2018 eruption

Article Publication Date

17-Nov-2025

Discover the world’s most dynamic geysers in a newly updated classic

Geological Society of America

Boulder, Colo., USA: The Geological Society of America (GSA) is proud to announce the release of Geysers: What They Are and How They Work, Third Edition, by noted geologist and Yellowstone expert T. Scott Bryan. This updated edition of Bryan’s classic work captures the drama, mystery, and science behind some of the planet’s most extraordinary natural phenomena.

In this richly illustrated guide, Bryan returns to the geysers of Yellowstone National Park—including Old Faithful, Castle, Grand, Steamboat, and Echinus—offering fresh insights into their shifting activity and distinct personalities. Readers will discover why some geysers erupt with clockwork regularity while others slumber for decades before roaring back to life, and what drives the breathtaking power that propels columns of water hundreds of feet into the air.

Using vivid color photographs and clear, engaging explanations, Bryan unravels how geysers form, why they appear only in certain geothermal landscapes, and what makes each one unique. This third edition features 95 color photographs, four detailed illustrations and maps, and a glossary, suggested readings, and index, making it an essential resource for park visitors, educators, and anyone fascinated by the dynamic forces shaping our planet.

Journalists may request a finished copy from klandow@geosociety.org.

Geysers: What They Are and How They Work, Third Edition
by T. Scott Bryan
ISBN 9780813741291 • Trade paperback • $22.00
8⅜ x 9 • 96 pages
95 color photographs • 4 color illustrations and maps, glossary, suggested reading, index
Publication date: 9 December 2025

About the Author

T. Scott Bryan earned degrees in geological sciences at San Diego State University and the University of Montana. He spent fourteen summers working as an interpretive ranger in Yellowstone National Park and later served in the Volunteer in Parks program. He was one of the founding directors—and the first president—of the Geyser Observation and Study Association and is the author of The Geysers of Yellowstone and GSA’s Arizona Rocks! He is also the coauthor of The Explorer’s Guide to Death Valley National Park, written with his wife, Betty Tucker-Bryan. Bryan is retired as emeritus professor of geology and astronomy at Victor Valley College in Victorville, California, and now lives near Tucson, Arizona.

About the Geological Society of America

The Geological Society of America (GSA) is a global professional society with more than 17,000 members across over 100 countries. As a leading voice for the geosciences, GSA advances the understanding of Earth's dynamic processes and fosters collaboration among scientists, educators, and policymakers. GSA publishes Geology, the top-ranked geoscience journal, along with a diverse portfolio of scholarly journals, books, and conference proceedings—several of which rank among Amazon's top 100 best-selling geology titles.

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The most effective online fact-checkers? Your peers

Research shows that being called out by peers, not algorithms or experts, makes online authors think twice about spreading misinformation

University of Rochester

Interstellar visitor hoax — image:
FAKE NEWS: An X post featuring so-called reporting about a comet reversing its thrusters. The Community Note flags for online users that “This headline is misleading.”
view more
Credit: Huaxia Rui

When the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) invited users to flag false or misleading posts, critics initially scoffed. How could the same public that spreads misinformation be trusted to correct it? But a recent study by researchers from the University of Rochester, the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign, and the University of Virginia finds that “crowdchecking” (X’s collaborative fact-checking experiment known as Community Notes) actually works.

X posts with public correction notes were 32 percent more likely to be deleted by the authors than those with just private notes.

The paper, published in the journal Information Systems Research, shows that when a community note about a post’s potential inaccuracy appears beneath a tweet, its author is far more likely to retract that tweet.

“Trying to define objectively what is misinformation and then removing that content is controversial and may even backfire,” notes coauthor Huaxia Rui, the Xerox Professor of Information Systems and Technology at the University of Rochester's Simon Business School. “In the long run, I think a better way for misleading posts to disappear is for the authors themselves to remove those posts.”

Using a causal inference method called regression discontinuity and a vast dataset of X posts (previously known as tweets), the researchers find that public, peer-generated corrections can do something experts and algorithms have struggled to achieve. Showing some notes or corrective content alongside potentially misleading information, Rui says, can indeed “nudge the author to remove that content.”

Community Notes on X: An experiment in public correction

Community Notes operates on a threshold mechanism. For a corrective note to appear publicly, it must earn a “helpfulness” score of at least 0.4. (A proposed note is first shown to contributors for evaluation. The bridging algorithm used by Community Notes prioritizes ratings from a diverse range of users—specifically, from people who have disagreed in their past ratings—to prevent partisan group voting that could otherwise manipulating a note’s visibility.) Conversely, notes that fall just below that threshold stay hidden to the public. That design allows for a natural experiment as the researchers were able to compare X posts with notes just above and below the cutoff (i.e., visible to the public versus visible only to Community Notes contributors )—thereby enabling them to measure the causal effect of public exposure.

In total, the researchers analyzed 264,600 posts on X that received at least one community note during two separate time intervals—the first before a US presidential election, which is a time when misinformation typically surges (June–August 2024), and the second two months after the election (January–February 2025).

The results were striking: X posts with public correction notes were 32 percent more likely to be deleted by the authors than those with just private notes, demonstrating the power of voluntary retraction as an alternative to forcible removal of content. The effect persisted across both study periods.

The reputation effect

An author’s decision to retract or delete, the team discovered, is primarily driven by social concerns. “You worry,” says Rui, “that it’s going to hurt your online reputation if others find your information misleading.”

Publicly displayed Community Notes (highlighting factual inaccuracies) function as a signal to the online audience that “the content—and, by extension, its author—is untrustworthy,” the researchers note.

In the social media ecosystem, reputation is important—especially for users with influence—and speed matters greatly, as misinformation tends to spread faster and farther than corrections.

The researchers found that public notes not only increased the likelihood of tweet deletions but also accelerated the process: among retracted X posts, the faster notes are publicly displayed, the sooner the noted posts are retracted.

Those whose posts attract substantial visibility and engagement or who have large follower bases, face heightened reputational risks. As a result, verified X users (those marked by a blue check mark) were particularly quick to delete their posts when they garnered public Community Notes, exhibiting a greater concern for maintaining their credibility.

The overall pattern suggests that social media’s own dynamics, such as status, visibility, and peer feedback, can improve online accuracy.

A democratic defense against misinformation?

Crowdchecking, the team concludes, “strikes a balance between protecting First Amendment rights and the urgent need to curb misinformation.” It relies not on censorship but on collective judgment and public correction. The algorithm employed by Community Notes emphasizes diversity and views that are supported by both sides.

Initially, Rui admits, he was surprised by the team’s strong findings.

“For people to be willing to retract, it’s like admitting their mistakes or wrongdoing, which is difficult for anyone, especially in today’s super polarized environment with all its echo chambers,” he says.

At the outset of the study, the team had wondered if the correcting mechanisms might even backfire. In other words, could a public display note really induce people to retract their problematic posts or would it make them dig in their heels?

Now they know it works.

“Ultimately,” Rui says, “the voluntary removal of misleading or false information is a more civic and possibly more sustainable way to resolve problems.”