Lava deltas, similar to river deltas form wherever sufficient sub-aerial flows of lava enter standing bodies of water. The lava cools and breaks up as it encounters the water, with the resulting fragments filling in the adjacent seabed topography such that the flow can move further offshore sub-aerially. Lava deltas are generally associated with large-scale, effusive type basaltic volcanism.
Starting in January at Kīlauea Volcano’s Kamokuna ocean entry, the lava hit the salty water, shooting molten rock upward and outward, accompanied by a rising, steamy cloud of acid.
Normally cooling lava would stack up, creating a rocky shelf on which the lava settles called a lava delta. But this time, the flow continued to gush nearly 100 feet down, into the sea, for a whole month.
Ocean Entry Hazards - Important info:https://volcanoes.usgs.gov/observatories/hvo/hawaii_ocean_entry.html
Article:https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/02/science/hawaii-lava-stream.html
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