Elegy for a vent in a Hawaiian volcano: It blew for 35 years. It just ceased

Pu‘u ‘O‘o was like the kvetchiest relative imaginable: It vented more or less nonstop for 35 years — a staggeringly long time for an eruption — until it suddenly collapsed on April 30 last year, according to the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. But Pu‘u ‘O‘o also inspired and taught and dazzled and confounded volcano scientists, who felt lucky to be alive at that time, in that place, with an eruption that was always on. [Hawaii has made peace with its angry volcano; not so its tsunamis, hurricanes and heating Earth]
In the mid-1990s, when the Pu‘u ‘O‘o eruption was barely a decade old, it was possible to drive the whole ropy length of Chain of Craters Road in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, from the summit down to sea level, and park near the edge of an active flow.

Source: www.washingtonpost.com