This active volcano is in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on the Big Island. Eruptions in recent years have destroyed homes south of Hilo as the lava flowed to the sea, where it fragments into cinders when it hits the ocean.
Kilauea's 4,077 foot summit has collapsed into a depression paved with recent lava flows. The caldera is 2.5 miles across and within it is the volcano's primary vent. In January 1983 the most recent major eruptions began and continues today, building a spatter cone over 800 feet high and adding hundreds of acres of oceanfront land.
