Manning the Keck Observatory table at AstroDay had me in Hilo again this weekend. Already close, why not visit the volcano again?
The lava lake at Halemaʻumaʻu sport several fountains of lava along the far rim, May 2, 2015.This time I drug Deb along with me, not completely unwillingly I admit. A simple plan… Drive over the island early, do lunch at Hilo Burger Joint, off to the mall to do our thing at the table, breakdown the displays, and straight out to the volcano.
That “straight out” to the volcano part was a very good idea, I had made that clear in the plan. Arriving at the park we could see preparations and extra personnel ready for an onslaught of visitors. We got there just in time, parking in the Jagger Museum parking lot. A short time later we learned from the folks just arriving that they were parking at another lot further out. At least the Park Service had a shuttle bus running.
The pressure just keeps on building. This is a major surge of magma into the mountain. There is not much mystery about this… The increased seismic levels, the rising lava lake, but most of all the tilt meters indicating substantial inflation of the summit caldera.
Deformation data for Kilauea Caldera from the USGS Hawaii Volcano Observatory for May 2, 2015Always watch the deformation data, this is the single best indicator of the pressure in the magma chamber. Sensitive tilt meters continuously monitor the swelling of the summit around the caldera, giving a real time view inside the volcano.
As you can see from the graph it has gone up and up over the last week. There have been a couple pauses, almost looking like it was going to begin deflation. But no, it just goes up again. The result is lava spilling out onto the floor of Halemaʻumaʻu crater and a beautiful nighttime show.
The interesting thing is that this increase in pressure has not been seen at the downslope vent around Puʻu ʻŌʻō. The flows there remain rather anemic and there is no sign of inflation around the vent. Add the seismic data and things get interesting.
Seismic data for the Kilauea Caldera and southeast rift zone May 2, 2015The USGS has sketched out this basic outline of the events in the volcano in their public press releases. But they are rather cautious to give any strong predictions. No surprise, they have a reputation to maintain. Perhaps it is wise to not give any predictions, this volcano may seem predictable, but when you least expect it it does something different.
I on the other hand, have no professional reputation as a vulcanologist. I can throw caution to the wind and prognosticate…
My prediction? Unless something occurs to relieve the pressure, perhaps a major increase in the flow of lava at Puʻu ʻŌʻō, there will be an eruption elsewhere. My guess? South of the main caldera along the southeast rift zone in the Makaopuhi Crater or Nāpau Crater area.
When? Who knows, much depends on the magma supply surge continuing. As long as the pressure keeps building the odds of an eruption elsewhere on the volcano increase with it.
It will be interesting to watch. And watch we will. I expect to be at the Jagger museum overlook Saturday evening. Look for the crowd around my telescope.
I have plenty of video from this morning, but no time to post it yet. What I do have is a video from last night taken by my friend Dan Birchall. Yes the same Dan who got the four laser timelapse I wish I had gotten. Apparently we missed each other at the overlook by just a few minutes!
The showroom at Akatsuka Orchid GardensAkatsuka Orchid Gardens is a business that caters to serious gardeners and casual tourists. An oddly diverse clientele, but a seemingly successful business model. Located on Highway 11 halfway between Hilo and Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The tour buses shuttling visitors between the cruise ships and the volcano often stop here, as do many tourists traveling the usual island loop.
It is worth the stop. Upon entering you are greeted by a profusion of spectacular blooms. Even with no intent to buy you can enjoy the many spectacular blooms. Orchids are utterly amazing in the variety of flower shapes in an array of intense colors.
The main greenhouse at Akatsuka Orchid GardensEver popular Cattleya and Dendrobiums make up the bulk of the offerings. But there are other families represented among the bewildering display of flowers.
There is no charge to enter the main showroom to view the many orchids for sale. Many spectacular blooms are simply on display. For a fee they offer a growing operation tour, probably a must for an orchidphile, but the cost was a little steep, $35 per person.
All of the plants for sale are pre-inspected and come with export paperwork. Better yet, you can have your order shipped home to avoid the trouble of passing through the various agricultural inspections. The staff has the shipping procedure down to an art, packaging the delicate plants just so and holding the order so it will arrive after you are home from your vacation.
As long as the gardens are not swarming with tourists, just look for the tour buses, I would recommend stopping. If my home on the dry side were a little more orchid friendly I would probably have dropped a few dollars, it was tempting.
Watching active volcanic eruptions should be done from a safe distance, and a group of California researchers has figured out how to do it from, ironically, Mauna Kea – one of Earth’s tallest volcanoes – using the W. M. Keck Observatory. Employing an ingenious combination of telescopic surveys and archival data, they have gathered nearly 40 distinct snapshots of effusive (slow) volcanic eruptions and high temperature outbursts on Jupiter’s tiny moon, Io, showing details as small as 100 km (60 miles) on the moon’s surface.
While space-based telescopes were once required for viewing surface details on Io – similar in size to our Moon, but more than 1,600 times distant – adaptive optics (AO), pioneered at Keck, allows teams like that led by Franck Marchis, a researcher at the Carl Sagan Center of the SETI Institute, to collect fascinating data on the wild show from Earth. Marchis presented results from ground-based telescopic monitoring of Io’s volcanic activity over the past decade this week, at the 2012 Division of Planetary Sciences Meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
Erupting volcanoes on Io cannot be seen well from beneath the Earth’s atmosphere using classical astronomical techniques. Io is a relatively small satellite with a 3,600 km diameter, more than 630 million kilometers away. In 1979, Voyager 1 visited the Jovian system, revealing Io’s dynamic volcanic activity from the first close-up pictures of its surface, capturing bizarre volcanic terrains, active plumes and hot spots. The Galileo spacecraft remained in orbit in the Jovian system from 1995 to 2003 and observed more than 160 active volcanoes and a broad range of eruption styles. Several outstanding questions remained in the post-Galileo era, and the origin and long-term evolution of Io’s volcanic activity is still not fully understood.
Quiescent activity of Io observed in 2010 and 2011 showing several quasi-permanent eruptions at 3.8 microns [bottom] and the absence of bright, hotter outbursts at 2.1 microns [top]. Credit: Franck Marchis, SETI Institute
In the meantime, astronomers designed instruments to break the “seeing barrier” and improve the image quality of ground-based telescopes. The blurring (“seeing”) introduced by the constant motion of the Earth’s atmosphere can be measured and corrected in real time using adaptive optics (AO), providing an image with a resolution close to the theoretical “diffraction limit” of the telescope. The W. M. Keck Observatory has used adaptive optics since 1999.
“Since our first observation of Io in 2001 using the Keck II 10-meter telescope and its AO system from Mauna Kea in Hawaii, our group became very excited about the technology. We also began using AO at the Very Large Telescope in Chile, and at the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii. The technology has improved over the years, and the image quality and usefulness of these AO systems have made them part of the essential instrument suite for large telescopes,” said Marchis.
Vintage film of Mauna Loa eruption during 1940 by Harold T. Stearns, a USGS Hydrologist-Volcanologist.
An eruption of Mauna Loa is something everyone fears and hopes for. This enormous volcano will erupt again, almost certainly within our lifetimes, possibly even the next decade. The last eruption was in 1984, the mountain has been quiet for well over two decades now, an uncharacteristically long period of quiescence. When it does erupt this volcano is capable of emitting huge volumes of lava, that reach the sea quite quickly down the steep slopes A dangerous mountain to be wary of.
