Orchid
Category: Hawai’i
Exploring the islands
Blackberry
Helmet Urchins
Light at the End of the Tube
Coastal Trail
Mauna Loa Concerns
Like most armchair volcanologists on this island I have been monitoring Mauna Loa more closely lately. The deformation graphs in particular have been? Interesting. I have even gone so far as predicting that we will not get through the year without a Mauna Loa eruption.
The area of concern has been the western rift zone, exhibiting steady and shallow seismic activity for the last several years. More concerning is the rate of inflation shown in the GPS data, This seems to have doubled in rate around last October.
Then comes today.
An intense seismic swarm is currently occurring beneath the NW flank. Still fairly deep. a few kilometers below the surface, but getting shallower. Magma is definitely moving, a sizable mass moving upwards and emplacing itself higher in the volcano.
This may come to nothing in the near term. Like many seismic swarms it may stop. Just part of the process towards a future eruption some years from now, or never. Or we may be seeing the first step in a new eruption. I will hold to my prediction of an eruption sometime in 2021.
Sit back and watch.
Waikoloa Trail
A Sea of Lava
Crater Glow
Windmill Walk
Another Sunday hike. This one requires no drive to reach the trailhead, I put on my boots and swung the pack over my shoulder at the front door. This time I would head north out of the village to the Lalamilo Wind Farm.
I have hiked out this way before, but have not gone nearly as far out from the village. The hike is along old ranch roads through the pasture land that surrounds Waikoloa Village.
The grassy hills that surround Waikoloa may look inviting from a distance. It is when you actually attempt to hike here that the true nature of the area becomes apparent. These are old aʻa lava flows, studded with loose rock and clinker, difficult to see in the thick grass threatening to trip you, roll an ankle, or scrape your chins. You quickly learn to stay on the old ranch roads and jeep trails, which form a web across the landscape.
The cool morning air makes for a pleasant walk through the low hills. Goats are everywhere, bleating kids echo across the landscape, billy’s keep watch on you from boulders perched above the trail.
The facilities and detritus of cattle ranching are scattered across the area. Here an abandoned watering trough, another filled with water and operational. A wrecked and abandoned IH semi tractor sits in a corral rusting back into the earth.
It is not until you get close that you realize just how big the windmills are, they loom over than landscape. The five Vestas V47/660 turbines stand 55m (180ft) high and have blades 47m (over 150ft) long.
With no wind the blades are still and feathered. I take advantage of this to fly the drone around and get some nice photos before finding a bit of shade. I take a break to eat and drink before starting the walk back to the house. I figure the walk put 7.4 miles behind me, just a nice morning stroll.