"Deciphering Kīlauea's history deepens our understanding of volcanic and seismic hazards," said lead author Lauren Ward Yong, who conducted this study as part of her doctoral dissertation in the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST). "It offers critical insights into how stress evolves in volcanic systems, guiding our ability to anticipate and interpret future earthquakes and magmatic events."

The study highlights the hazard potential of the décollement, the major fault zone beneath Kīlauea volcano where two rock masses are moving past each other, which continuously drives the volcano southward and poses risks of large earthquakes coupled with complex volcanic activity within the region.

Yong and co-authors explored both the deformation and stress changes of the volcano from 1898–2018 by analyzing six different geodetic datasets. Their analysis encompassed 338,396 earthquake observations and more than 15,000 measurements of surface motion, or displacements, to construct a computational model replicating the observed displacements and stress before, during, and after the large 1975 Kalapana earthquake. This model pinpointed key structural features—fault planes, rift zones, and magma chambers—that drove these changes.