United States Geological Survey took over its operation in 1924, with the exception of a brief hiatus during the Great Depression when HVO was run by the National Park Service.
In 1922, volcanologist Thomas Jaggar suggested using Kilauea’s heat for geothermal energy:
“Volcano power for human use is a possibility, for heat is power, and volcanoes generate heat. … Cracks near Halemaumau have opened from time to time which sometimes get hotter and hotter until they become glowing furnaces, emitting apparently merely hot air. If a boring will start such a furnace, then twenty holes at such a place will run a respectable engine.”
- "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter J" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 22 April 2011.
- Thomas Augustus Jaggar (1956). My experiments with volcanoes. Hawaiian Volcano Research Association, Honolulu.
- Russell A. Apple (1987). "Thomas A. Jaggar, Jr. and the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory". Volcanism in Hawaii, USGS Professional Paper 1350.
- John Dvorak (2011). "The origin of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory". Physics Today. 64: 32. doi:10.1063/1.3592003. Archived from the original on 2013-02-24.
- "Thomas Jaggar returns to the Whitney Vault". USGS Volcano Watch. 2006. Retrieved 2009-06-22.
- "Whitney Laboratory of Seismology (1912)". Retrieved 2009-06-21.
- "Thomas Jaggar, HVO's founder". Hawaiian Volcano Observatory's Volcano Watch. March 21, 1997. Retrieved 2009-06-20.
- "The Mid-Pacific Magazine (1922)". Retrieved 2018-07-09.
- "Jaggar Museum". National Park Service. Retrieved 2009-06-20.