Kilauea Erupts!

This morning we docked in Hilo, where there can be 30 inches of rain in a day but no flooding. There are many different climate zones in Hawaii. 

Kona, on the other hand, has only 10-20 inches a year and is desert-like. Meghann Decker, a volcano researcher and educational specialist from UH Hilo Geology joined us.

We traveled to the Volcanoes National Park, where Kilauea, an active shield volcano, is located. The Hawaiian Islands were primarily formed from eruptions from shield volcanoes, which are very large and look like an upside down salad bowl. They produce very hot magma and are low in silica. (Silica makes the magma more explosive.) Their composition is mostly basalt. 

Strato volcanoes form from Teutonic plate movement. Some Pacific Islands, like the Aleutians, were formed this way. Teutonic plates don’t fit perfectly together, so they shift, bang, slide as they fight with each other. When one plate goes under in a hot spot, there is a tsunami. They move at the rate your fingernails grow. 

Yellowstone is a caldera volcano, characterized by the potential for massive, caldera-forming eruptions that expel a large volume of material.

A small farm stand along the way.

Volcano Road, of course!

 

Meghann said that Kilauea had started erupting at 2:30 AM (this was its 23rd episode), and that we might get to see it in action. The last time there was magma of this ferocity was in 1959. The lava fountains then were 1900 feet. Strands of magma the size of a human hair (also called Pele's hair) were found 25 miles away, and the caldera was 15% filled. 

There she goes! 

The magma comes out at 2100 degrees, then forms tephra (pieces of magma that solidify) at 1200 degrees.  

Tephra can be ash, hairlike strands (called Pele’s hair - see above), and increase to the size of a car. Bombs are anything bigger. 

Tephra (cooled magma seen here as rocks) shoots out in the lava fountain and falls back to earth. They have already solidified because the temperature has cooled to allow solidification. 

 

Tephra rock 

Different rocks form at different temperatures. Olivine are green rocks, which makes for some green beaches. Quartz forms at 500.

The magnesium in the heat is much hotter at the summit. Kilauea is the youngest volcano and is a 1 in terms of safety. Sometimes vegetation grows out of the lava flows.

 

Smaller tephra from an earlier eruption. 

 

We were very far away from the eruption, so there was no odor. Some trees can close their stomata, essentially holding their breath when a volcano erupts. Notice the helicopters on the middle left and right monitoring the eruption.

View of the rim and caldera.

 

As we walked along a boardwalk (the nearby land could be extremely hot), we saw steam venting in various areas. Once, a boy slipped off the boardwalk and experienced third degree burns.

Lava runs horizontally, then forms a crust and traps gases. This gas creates the tunnels/tubes. Some lava tubes can be 15,000 years old.

Meghann gives us all the information.

 

Walls of the lava tube.

Walking through the tube, which felt like walking through a cave.

Exiting the lava tube.