Drilling into Molten Lava in the Kilauea Iki Volcanic Crater, Hawaii

THE November 1959 eruption at Kilauea Iki, Hawaii, produced a lava lake more than 300 ft. deep containing about 45 million cubic yards of lava. An experiment was conducted to obtain knowledge of the problems encountered when drilling through the crust of the lake into molten rock, and to obtain as much volcanological data as possible.