In 1823, he and his party were traveling to the summit of Kilauea and encountered the aftermath of the 1823 Keaiwa lava flow, which erupted from a fissure now associated with the Great Crack. The first written account of eruptive activity in the Southwest Rift Zone was by the Rev. Some of these eruptions have been documented and witnessed, whereas others have more recently been recognized as young eruptions through the diligent mapping of geologists. The KeanakakoвЂi Tephra provides a useful marker in the Southwest Rift Zone to help constrain the ages of lava flows. This eruption resulted in the deaths of several hundred people traveling through the region, some of whose footprints are preserved in one of the ash deposits. One of the more historically important eruptions in Hawaiian history is the set of eruptions that occurred in 1790. These are the deposits of explosive eruptions known as the KeanakakoвЂi Tephra from the summit of Kilauea that began about 1500 and continued until the early 19th century.

The Southwest Rift ZoneвЂ™s sparse vegetation has given geologists of the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory a much clearer picture of the recent volcanic eruptions, particularly from about 1500 to the present.Д¬ontributing to the unique appearance of the Southwest Rift Zone, especially near the summit of Kilauea, are the wind swept, sandy, boulder-strewn explosive deposits, which blanket older lava flows. It is also less visited than other parts of Kilauea because of a lack of roads and only a few hiking trails. In contrast to the heavily forested East Rift Zone, much of the Southwest Rift Zone lies downwind of HalemaвЂumaвЂu in the KaвЂu Desert, which consists of sparse vegetation near the summit and scattered grasslands closer to the coast. The Southwest Rift Zone of Kilauea is almost entirely located within Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and hosts its own remarkable volcanic landforms, such as the Great Crack, the KamakaiвЂa Hills and PuвЂukoaвЂe. The frequent summit and East Rift Zone eruptions often seem to overshadow KilaueaвЂ™s Southwest Rift Zone, which extends southwest from HalemaвЂumaвЂu to the coast about 5 km (3 mi) southeast of Pahala. The newly enlarged HalemaвЂumaвЂu Crater is currently filling with lava from an eruption that began in December 2020. The summit of Kilauea also saw eruptions in April and September of 1982 and the 2008-18 lava lake, which drained and was followed by impressive collapses from May-September 2018.

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