Bruce Omori's Image

As the skin of the lava cooled, it drew a textured black veil across the hot flow beneath. Unreachable by foot, ‘it meant hovering in a helicopter directly over the apex of the breakout,’ explains Bruce. Despite the intense heat, he captured this abstract design of the creeping black web against the red-hot lava.

Tubes of cooled rock three metres wide encase lava as it travels from the erupting Kīlauea volcano to the sea. More than four cubic kilometres of lava has erupted since 1983. Breakouts can form at weak points in the tube walls. As the cool surface splits apart, the molten rock below is revealed.