When you want to see the stars, find someplace dark
Exploring an active volcano
Puna is glowing.
Not a good glow when you consider that glow is from a raging river of lava between fissure 8 and the sea at Kapoho. Still it can be pretty under the rising Milky Way. I stayed late at work and took a few photos on the way down the mauna. Click on the image for full scale goodness…
One of the most poignant scenes we witnessed was the many farms destroyed by the lava
Houses are bad enough, seeing the farms in front of the lava flow was worse. I found myself looking through the telephoto lens at the neat greenhouses, the orchards green in the morning sunlight. The wide flow front was in the process of destroying so many farms, remorselessly moving through the neat rows of papaya trees.
How to get a good look at this eruption? Not a trivial question. The neighborhoods involved are under mandatory evacuation orders enforced by police and National Guard checkpoints. Quite a few people have been arrested and cited while trying to get closer to the lava.
This is the first major change in the eruptions of Kilauea in decades. This eruption features phenomena seen in the old documentaries, lava fountains hundreds of feet high, huge flows cutting through the rainforest. Things I have always wanted to see.
As much as I would like to visit, we have simply not tried to get into lower Puna. It is just not pono to interfere with residents frantically trying to salvage whatever they can ahead of the flows, or emergency services already overburdened with the ongoing situation.
Two legal ways exist for visitors to get a closer look… Fly or float. Either take a helicopter ride over the eruption, or take one of the lava boats to an ocean entry.
The boats have resumed tours, but active ocean entries have been sporadic, running for a week, then stopping. As of Monday morning the lava has re-entered the ocean at Kapoho Bay, and is again view-able from the water. The boat runs also involve a fairly long run all the way from Hilo harbor. The boat ramp the tours once used at Pohoiki now cut off by the flows.
Continue reading “To See The Eruption”While much of the attention is on the lava flows and burning homes in lower Puna, there have been dramatic events at the summit of Kīlauea. The pit crater of Halemaʻumʻau that has been the subject of untold thousands of tourist photos has become almost unrecognizable.
The vog has been thick, really thick. Even here on the west side of the island it is enough that visibility is limited to a few miles, the mountains and ocean are lost in the haze. With the ongoing eruptions on the other side of the island and a lack of wind the vog has enveloped the entire island in gray. At times you can even smell it, the tang of sulfur in the air.
As the crescent moon set this evening it was reddened by the vog. Washed with a ruby red that was reminiscent of an eclipse. This image has been processed for noise and contrast, while the color was unchanged from the raw image. It really looked like this…
The ground beneath us is one constant in life you just expect to never change. Solid and unyielding, we build our lives upon the firm foundations of the Earth. When this constant betrays us it is truly disconcerting. The world loses some of its comforting stability.
Last Friday was a day when our islands were reminded of the instability of our world in a rather abrupt fashion.
The tiltmeters indicated that pressure in the caldera and Puʻu Oʻo had been building steadily. At the same time the activity in the 61g lava had been waning. Where was the magma going?
While speculation was rife, no one really knew what was coming. Three decades of eruptions from Puʻu Oʻo has become somewhat routine. People forget that Kilauea can be, and usually is much more unpredictable. That destruction can appear anywhere on her flanks.
We worried about the homes in the neighborhood and the people we knew who lived in the area. We compared notes, recalling who lived exactly where, fearing the lava flows would quickly spread. This was looking like a worst case scenario, a repeat of 1955 with more people and homes in the way.
Despite the outbreaks of lava in the rift zone the previous afternoon, we expected a routine Friday atop Mauna Kea. I had a list of tasks to complete… Inspect the K1 azimuth wrap, drill some anchor points to allow installation of the new ice monitor receiver on the roof, look for some spare parts for an encoder.
It should be an easy day on the summit… It was not.
Friday became a day I will remember for a long time to come.
I understand that some of our family can be a bit fuzzy on island geography. We have had a few exchanges with family members over the last couple days where we have had to remind them that we live on the other side of the island from the volcano. Yes, we are just fine and in no danger from the new eruption.
Like Fox News.
At least our family members understand the difference between Hawaiʻi Island and Oahu. But a national news network? I guess that to many Oahu is Hawaiʻi, rather in the same way that Los Angeles is California. Shall we just ignore 230 miles of Pacific Ocean and a few other islands in the way.
Yes, Deb felt the earthquakes in Waikoloa, but they were not bad. There was not even a broken glass at the house despite a magnitude 6.9 earthquake at the the other end of the island. We are 65 miles and two very large mountains away from the volcano.
I was at work and experienced the earthquakes at the summit. Mag 6.9 is now my personal record for strongest earthquake felt, I really do not need to feel anything larger.
While we are safely away from the new lava flows, there are many who are not. It is hard to describe my emotions when seeing video of a house burning as the lava pushes through. Nicely kept gardens surrounding the house betray the effort and pride of the home owner. You can feel dimly the shattering loss of a home and everything that goes with it.