Like in many parts of the world, 2020 has been an atrocious year for America: pandemic, wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, and more. “But then Kīlauea erupts, and we’re all like: ‘Yes!’” says Jackie Caplan-Auerbach, a seismologist and volcanologist at the Western Washington University. On December 20, 2020, at 9:36 p.m. local time, Kīlauea—the crowning volcanic jewel of the Hawaiian archipelago—woke up from a surprisingly brief slumber and began gushing again. Waterfalls of lava began pouring into Halemaʻumaʻu, the pit crater within the mountain’s cauldron-shaped summit. As of the morning of…
