Category: Hawai’i

Exploring the islands

Anchialine Pool

An anchialine pond is a brackish water pool near the ocean. The Kona coast of the big island is scattered with such pools.

An anchialine pool at Keahole Point
An anchialine pool at Keahole Point

Near the ocean the water table is quite high, often just a meter or so beneath the surface. These recent lava flows are highly fractured, riddled with cavities and lava tubes. Here the abundant fresh water from the mauna comes down to meet the seawater. The young lava rock is rich in nutrients and life flourishes in the dark crevices and chambers.

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A Visit to the Nation of Hawaiʻi

At the back of Waimānalo is a place separated from modern society through an act of sheer will. Here in rainy, windward Oahu is a valley ringed with impossibly steep cliffs, a pali that soars thousands of feet overhead draped in lush greenery. At the base of those cliffs is a place where an older culture finds a place to shelter, a place of refuge.

Kalo growing in Puʻuhonua o Waimānalo
Kalo growing in Puʻuhonua o Waimānalo

I am here to attend a tech event, a hackathon where various makers like myself use technology to solve problems. This event has been arranged by the folks of Purple Maiʻa, an organiztion dedicated to tech education. The theme this time? Instrumenting an ahupuaʻa, learning from the land by installing a network of instruments to monitor such things as temperature, water quality, stream flow, and more.

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Tephra

While enjoying and photographing episode 15 of the current eruption we got dumped on.

Pele's hair and reticulite from the episode 15 lava fountains
Pele’s hair and from the episode 15 lava fountains under the microscope

It was while photographing the spectacular fountains of episode 15 that bits of tephra began drifiting down on the crowded viewpoints along the crater rim. There was little wind and the enormous volcanic plume drifted over the eastern end of the caldera where thousands of people had come to view the eruption.

As I stood by the tripod I noted little clumps of Pele’s hair lazily drifiting down. Looking to see where it landed I note minute black gritty granules atop the camera and tripod. Oh lovely!

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