How Long Will the Eruption Last?
Like predicting the eruptions themselves, figuring out or influencing what specifically is going to happen next at Mauna Loa isn’t possible. “It’s planet Earth—it kind of does what it’s going to do,” Phoenix said. “We don’t really have any influence over it. It could peter out in hours, or days, or it could last for years.”
Usually, Phoenix said, Mauna Loa’s eruptions can stretch over a year or two, but they can also be very long-lived, with the volcano erupting for years at a time. “The system needs to equilibrate again, it needs to reset, and the pressure needs to be released,” she said. “Once the pressure is out of the system, the eruption can stop. But, of course, we don’t know how much magma the deep plumbing of Mauna Loa is going to inject into the magma chamber and then push out.”
