Visiting the Big Island and seeing live lava at Kahauale a 2 lava flow of Kilauea. Part 1
The first days on the Big Islands western side
Orbital shot showing Hawaii Island with vog and gas plumes from both Puu Oo and Halemaumau and an ocean entry plume. Most analogous to two years before this adventure.
Map showing the parts of interest we visited at the western side of the Island
Introduction
Its hard to describe how amazing it was for me to see Kilaueas lava flows live in action ( Pele cursed my own future by touching her but beautiful it sure is). I could not resist it, I got so close I almost burned my face off and father almost fell into a sheet of creeping pahoehoe. There were scenes and experiences that have no other comparison and was a sight that evoked impending.. doom.
We took many photos that day and they are a unique record of a life dream and of the Puu Oo era flows. It has now been over ten years since I saw ”live” flowing lava close-up on Kilauea and it is about time that I put this up on VC, do something useful with the ageing photos and make an article series about my first close-up lava hike in person ( saving the really fun stuff for part 2 ). My father, armed with only a small and primitive digital camera, took some amazing photos of me at the Kahauale’a 2 pahoehoe lava flow. The photos which I will show later became all nearly lost because we lost the camera in Vietnam’s Mekong River two years after Hawaii. Just before loosing the camera we had physical copies made of them. They are now remade into digital copies and saved both as paper copies and as digital files on two sticks. I want to do something with them so I put up my 11 year old adventure here in Volcanocafe. It is 11 years overdue in reality. Its very hard to write an article about a visit to a place as amazing and diverse as the Island of Hawai‘i and a volcano as complex as Kilauea, but in part 1 I will talk about how I got there, the general eruption situation back that year and what we did the first days. I have visited Big Island many times but chose to write about this trip to Hawaii.
I have always been addicted to volcanoes, and that addiction has resulted in many volcanic visits over my last 30 years of life, and I have indeed made many volcanic visits. The highpoint of that was seeing the live moving lava flows at Kilauea: of course Kilauea (just like Hector and Chad) is my favorite volcano. Hawaiis giant volcanoes have many cards that makes them the worlds greatest. Kilauea is one of the most complex magma system architectures in the world, with many rifts, magma storages and conduits. Among volcanic rifts one of the largest and longest too in the world extending lateraly for around 200 km from pahala to the tip of the puna submarine rift ridge five kilometers below sealevel. Hawaiian volcanoes are true giants some shields like Mauna Loa and old Maui are volcanoes the size of small LIP provices to give some scale.
The Hawaiian giants are by individual specs in many ways the world’s most impressive volcanoes. By sheer volume and productivity these volcanic edifices rules supreme: they are the only volcanic edifices today that can grow to well over 100 000 km3 in just a few hundreds of thousands of years, making all other volcanoes I visited seem like tiny dwarfs. This makes Hawaii together with Iceland the world’s most productive volcanic regions in lava output. For me seeing Mauna Loa’s long huge bulk from Kilauea stretch for thousands of square kilometers in the distant haze was an incredible sight. In Hawaii the mantle magma generation is more concentrated than in Iceland to a relatively small area below central and southern Big Island. That means Kilauea and Mauna Loa can get a huge influx. I think 0.1 km3 to maybe 0.2 km3 a year is the base minimum average but the amount of magma pumped into Kilauea can be as high as 0.5km3 a year during surges in supply. Since 1790, Kilauea may have produced nearly 20 km3 of lava and because of this gained its personality as an ideal tourist volcano. Lava tourism in Big Island was a thing way back since Mark Twains days. Kilauea is really a magic box of basaltic activity, it can do anything and can do it frequently and that is certainly a thing now with a high influx after Puu Oo is gone.
Kilauea is hyperactive compared to most other volcanoes and because of that it was the first volcano I was exposed too as small child. I have to go to year 2000 to remember seeing lava on tv as a 5-year old. The old films from Krafft and volcano video productions productions were the only good stuff available and most of those footage were from the ever active Kilauea. I visited Kilauea as a kid too during the early 2000 s lava flow phases, but we never really got close to the action, that changed in later 2013- 2014. In this two part series I will show my volcanic adventure and what we did in Hawaii back then saving the most thrill for part two.
A short recap on Kilauea and Puu Oo up to 2013 – 2014, part of the ”forest burning years”
Kilauea had been erupting for years non stop during my lifetime so it became an obvious choice and my favorite volcano. We should go briefly into the background of what the volcano was like when I went there in 2013-2014. The run-up to my lava hike had decades of events and causes that go back to before I was born. While in human history nearly always constantly active, in more modern times (post WW2) the lava output in Kilaueas rifts really began to pick up in the early 1960 s with rising supply, large intrusions and many large eruptions in Halemaumau and the East Rift Zone as Kilauea took over dominance over Mauna Loa. In the late 1960’s the Mauna Ulu vent was born and provided the first opportunities for USGS geologists to study a lava shield grow. The Ulu eruption in 1969 – 1975 provided spectacular lava fountains, lava falls, and lava tubes. Shallow pillow lava were first filmed offshore during the Ulu ocean entries.
Just a few years of lower intensity activity followed after the 1975 ERZ quake until 1983 when the Puu Oo flank vent formed due to escelating storage and magma supply and this is where our story starts. What started out as geysers of tall lava fountains building a tall cone, became the longest lived lava eruption in modern history and the largest one in volume (6 km3). By 1986 magma was erupting non stop at supply rates. It would still do so today without Leilani that trashed Puu Oo’s pipeline, due to the current high magma supply. The formation of Kupaianahas vent lava lake started non stop effusion of highly fluid tube-fed pahoehoe that would be the norm of activity up to spring 2018. Just before I was born the peaceful Kalapana town was destroyed by tube-fed pahoehoe in 1990. Kilauea resurfaces itself completely every thousand years (or likely less) so anything we build will sooner or later be taken back by the volcano. This was grimly reminded in 2018. I was born in october 1995 and the Puu Oo eruption had been ongoing for 12 years already back then with 9 years of tube-fed effusion. Another 19 years of lava effusion passed until my lava hike in 2014. In the mean time Puu Oo vent gained its reputation as tourist friendly hikable lava flows. The eruptions happened in many episodes which involved tube-fed pahoehoe that advanced down to the coastal flats and entered the Pacific Ocean providing a sea spectacle for tourists and land building could be studied in detail. HVO divided the Puu Oo eruption into 61 lava flow episodes of activity, almost all where tube-fed pahoehoe. Each episode built their own lava tubes that fed slow compound flow fields.
The average lava output in tubes was about 4m3 a second. A higher supply era in 2007 – 2010 provided the spectacular steam plumes of the Waikupanaha ocean entry. In 2008 during formation of a large magma chamber Kilauea’s summit began to move again. The opening of the halemaumau overlook lava lake ( 2008 – 2018 ) in Kilauea’s summit caldera was a significant event, the first time together with Nyiragongo in 2003 that volcanologists could study the formation of an open conduit lava lake. The Halemaumau lava lake became a window into Kilauea’s depths. The summit lava lake was connected to the Puu Oo vent down in the rift and the lava lake rose and fell according to deformation and was used to measure pressure. The Puu Oo vent downrift also had its own smaller lava lakes or spatter cones that where sometimes visited by brave hikers willing to cross the pahoehoe wastelands that by 2013 covered nearly 100 square km around the vent.
The Kilauea events most relevant to this story started in 2013, 12 years ago by 2025. On January 19, 2013 lava spilled from a perched lava pond that had built a small shield above the north crater rim of Puu Oo, spreading flows down Pu‘u‘ō‘ō’s northeast flank as far as 8 km (5 mi) as a new tube. These lava flows were called the Kahauale‘a 1 and 2 flows. The Kahauale‘a flows in early November 2013 took over when the barely active Peace Day flow 2011 – 2013 stopped as the vent of that flow high on the northeast flank of Pu‘u‘ō‘ō became inactive. This cut the flows at the coastal flats that were the most frequent place of activity. With constant magma influx a new flow formed from an overflowing pond in Puu Oo. It was the Kahauale‘a 2 flows, where me and my father and a few friends hiked. We reached the Kahauale‘a 2 lava flows through fern forest in late december 2013 – early january 2014. Looking at HVO updates months before going I feared we had lost the opportunity to see active lava with the active lava flows moving up in the cloudforest in summer 2013. These years 2013 up to 2016 at Puu Oo are in the local tongue in Puna called ” the forest burning years” and it iss here where my story starts when Puu Oo fed its lava tube into the rainforest.
Google Earth shots showing extreme rainfall variation along the Kona coast resulting in many different biomes that we visted.
Arrival on Big Island late december 2013
Its difficult to explain and put into summary what an amazing and unique place the Big Island of Hawaii really is. In terms of volcanic Islands built up by volcanic edifices, the Island of Hawaii is the largest in the world. (The larger Iceland is more of a lava plateau.) A rental car is well needed and we had one ready.
The island of Hawaii is also one of the worlds climatologically diverse spots for such a relatively small area. The huge bulks of Mauna Loa and Kea blocks the trade winds forming one wet side and one dry side of the island and temperatures vary with elevation. On the Island there are tropical rainforests, spooky highland cloudforests, highland temperate grasslands, hot lava deserts, tropical savannahs, moonsoon forests, hot shrubland, to seasonal snow on the peaks of Mauna Loa and Kea. You can find any type of climate that suits you in Hawaii. The flora and fauna evolved in ultra – isolation is unique too. We already knew we where going into a special place. Its also a place of immense calm and soothingness. There is lots my eyes saw and did just before the most fun stuff so will give a summary. Big Island is so large and diverse, it too much to see, so I will limit myself to what we did and what I just saw with my eyes.
This adventure was a long time ago but I try to remember and I don’t remember that much but the first images comes to mind was the landing into Kailua Kona. My eyes looking out the aircraft window on the sapphire deep crystal blue Pacific Ocean dotted with small low ”trade wind cumulus clouds”. When comming into Kona we got lower and lower and the black alkaline Huehue pahoehoe lava flow from 1801 fills the area where Kona airport is placed and the culprit Haulalai volcano that loomed in the distant voggy haze pollution that had been a thing since Puu Oo started 31 years earlier. Me and father went directly to collect the rental car. It was suprisingly hot at the lowlands in Kailua Kona. It was noon and had +31 c and yet it was nearly January at latitude 20 degrees and it felt oppressively humid, a good +11 c warmer than the past years Christmas at Tenerife due to Hawaii’s lower latitude and warmer sea surface temperatures. The Kona coast and Kohala desert are the hottest places on Big Island and the hot weather and thirst resulted in many failed attemps of hiking coastal parts of the 1859 and year 1800 flows from Mauna Loa and Hualalai. A week later up at Kilauea’s cool cloudforests was the adventure of a lifetime: lava hiking was not a problem there. The first few days on Big Island were spent relaxing and preparation for the lava hike 200 kilometers away on the islands other side. We also did inspect some of the other gigantic volcanoes that make up this Island.
I was extremely happy being on my favorite island again. I been there before as a small kid but in 2013-2014 I was 19 and could appreciate it even more. I had by then spent quite some years reading stuff on Big Island’s volcanoes and explored every part of the Island in Google Earth so being here again was not anything new for me. Hawaii was almost like a home for me even back then. The first days while busy and rushed still was spent absorbing the immense beauty of the Kona Coast. Big Island has many beautiful sides but it is a paradise: the Island is vast, mostly nature, sparsely populated, no skyscrapers, small towns dot the coast that stretch for eternity and the seawater is as blue as cobalt. It could not be anything else than an earthly paradise and I do love the Big Island’s tropical small town atmosphere. Our first stop was the royal seacliff hotel looking like a yacht ship stuck on land. Even there at day one the hotels office personal where skeptical of our upcoming lava hike plans. I remember hearing the words ”too remote and dangerous trekking” but I and father knew it was at least very doable. The first day while father was asleep was spend walking around royal seacliffs lava coast and messing ( inspecting ) with the sea urchins carefully holding them in a spine
Source: reddit a winter snow capped Mauna Loa looms over the pleasant lowlands on Kona.
Google Earth: Kailua Kona is one of the most pleasant places I ever visted.
Google earth: Kailua Kona
Kona – Captain Cook
If I close my eyes I remember vividly that first evening in Kona sitting alone on the hotel roof in the warm evening humidity with an endless ocean, pinkish orange skies with a red orange sun, spotted with sunspots that resembles a blob of molten glass stuck in the sky, setting in the volcanic vog that came from both Puu Oo and Halemaumau vents that were co-erupting in 2008 – 2018. It is a pleasant sight at royal seacliff hotel with coconut palms and tropical trees in bloom, the first place we stayed in this adventure. Below the spikey, sea urchin infested pahoehoe laden cliff coast stretch for eternity with blue waves (resembling blue colored glass). Large waves crash in old lava tubes and erosional blowholes spew fountains of clear blue seawater. Big Island is young and active so nearly lacks sandy beaches that are more common on the older Hawaiian islands. The huge cinder and spatter cones up at Hualalai’s enlongated summit are clearly visible from the rooftop as well. New eruptions like the 1800 s would be a disaster for this area with steep slopes and fluid lava at very high effusion rates. Kailua Konas coast is hot, hazy and muggy, partly cloudy but it rarely rains in the lowland and classified as a ”tropical semi-arid climate”. Miles inland and elevation 600 to a 1000 m up is a green band of tropical woodland with pleasant weather.
Kailua Kona is a beautiful sight indeed a stereotypical paradise. It is like all of the communities on the Big Island: a place of total calm and peace which I found very likeable, calm villa properties, small apartment blocks and small restaurants and shops stretch for miles along the coast. The tropical forest is absolutely beautiful, and in the tropical gardens residents can grow anything and a lot in the gardens is non native tropical plants from America, Africa and Asia. Coconut palms and travellers palms are a beautiful mix. The colonial style villa verandas mixes with the colourful supernovae that is bougainvillea and delonix regia blooms, dark pahoehoe lava slabs makes beautiful patterns in walls. This pleasant small town scenery goes along the coast and upslope into the clouds and it only thins a bit after Cook Bay. It is a very beautiful sight indeed and reminded me of Sicily’s small towns but the enviroment is much greener, and a good 20 c warmer than Catania is in deep winter and the architecture is much more exotic. The invasive anole lizards crawling on me in the bedroom while asleep was charming as well. Despite the beauty that exists here in Kailua Kona we had only little time to explore that local area as the scheme was full with lots of car trips, as is always the situation if you want to see around the Big Island that is many times the size of Tenerife.
The next day we drove to Captain Cook Bay. The beautiful scenery along Malamahoa Highway is simply stunning with lush tropical greenery and flowers in bloom looking like a Lilo and Stitch disney film, the towns of Kealakekua, Captain Cook, Honaunau – Napoopoo are ”literal paradises” just like Kailua Kona and Hilo itself. They are the ultimate ”stereotypical” small town tropical paradise I was in complete peace all the time. When the weather is good then the broad crest of Malamahoa Highway is a good spot to spot Mauna Loa’s southern rift that is seen as a long blue shadow in the distant rayleigh scattering. The volcano is so huge that you really cannot spot it from the ground. Mauna Loa, the largest volcano on Earth, is so large that it is very hard to see. You can’t see it above the horizon: it IS the horizon. In the afternoon when it gets very hot, small ortograhic cumulus forms tends to form at 800 – 1000 m elevation at Mauna Loa adding some relief from the stifling afternoon heat in the lowlands with stunning crepuscular rays resulting shining down on the crystal blue sparkling tropical ocean.
Leaving the highway the road snakes down to Captain Cook bay whose dazzling crystal clear, deep blue indigo waters lurk below with a light blue strip where its shallower, a very beautiful and almost seductive sight indeed. A huge pahoehoe lava delta stretch from Manini beach to Honana village for four km where lava from Mauna Loa entered the ocean long ago. The delta is stuffed with dry dead looking thorny scrub and at lunchtime it is so hot outside that it is difficult to do stuff outside other than to swim. ( It was much more pleasant and cooler upslope )
The Big Island is one of the most powerful magma sources ( in terms of lava productivity ) in the world and that gives an effect on the landscapes when you inspect them. Indeed nearly all volcano slopes on the Island are smooth and gentle: lack of erosion and eruptions are frequent nearly all of Mauna Loa’s surfaces are estimated to be no more than a couple of thousands years old, explaining the smooth slopes we saw compared to the rough Canary islands. Walking the pahoehoe ridden beach at Honaunau beach I also noticed that the Islands’ beaches almost completey lacks tall coastal cliffs like the Canaries and that is another sign of frequent eruptions. The high fault cliffs of Kealakekua Bay are a stunning sight and result from the Ālika 2 Mauna Loa landslide. The crystal clear blue waters below it are a dazzingly stunning sight and a swim can yield a visibility of well over 60 meters if sea conditions are good. Clear and blue due to the tropical Pacific’s lack of nutrients to feed plankton growth. The black basalt lava cliff beach is oven hot in the sun when you returns chilled from a swim and you quickly warm up. Big Island of Hawii has barely any sandy beaches and that makes it a much better scuba and snorkeling spot than the older Islands that have more sandy beaches. Sandy beaches and bottoms are ”lifeless deserts” while the rocky lava bottoms of the Big Island are a good anchor for corals and hiding spots for animals. The result is a teeming paradise in a clear blue watery desert of the pacific.
I remember seeing that shimmering ”cobalt” waters contrasting with black basalt pahoehoe cliffs when walking down to Manini and Alahaka bay, the seawater was sky blue where it is shallow, and a dark blue in deep parts, as already told a very beautiful sight. I spent at least two hours swimming each time when visiting the shores. Underwater visibility was excellent getting bluer the deeper you dive. Visibility varies but I likely had over 65 meters first time, yellow tang fish schools scatter fast under me. At shallow depth the coral clad lava blocks display true color, with the sand patches white. Further out deeper looking down, that sand takes on a light blue color and the reefs turns deep blue. At deeper parts the sandy patches bottom that is now far below me is now a deep cobalt and the coral clad lava nearly indigo – black. Conditions in sea change all the time and it was less clear during my second visit years later. It evokes a picture in our head that fits perfectly how we view the ocean itself: a beautiful, mysterious and also terrifying place all at once. It perfectly sells as being both serene and unsettling all at once. It has a subversive beauty when in reality the ocean is an unforgiving place where even the giants of the sea are woundable in their harsh world. Many visitors dislike the hard rock on Big Islands beaches but I prefer that hard lava over messy sand. Getting back hours later meant an oven hot car that has been too long in the sun.
Green Sand beach and Mauna Loa’s South Point
After two days driving along Kailua Kona coast and parts of Hualalai coasts and their beaches and looking for goods for the upcomming ( crazy ) lava hike later, me, father and a friend from CA decided to explore the southern parts of Mauna Loa and what can be seen there. Big Island is indeed a big place, you will spend a lot of time in a car if you want to explore around the island. Driving the Hawaii belt road, Mauna Loa’s flank seems to stretch for eternity with the same scenery but after a while the first major lava flow branch from Mauna Loa’s 1950 eruption appears, the Hokuna flow. Later the Ka ohe flow follows this is later followed by the Ka apuna lava flow branch from 1950. These are at time of writing 73 years old flows which still appear as gaps in the tropical greenery. The 1950 eruption had gigantic eruption rates which reached perhaps 18 000 to 20 000 cubic meters a second at the start with some channelized flows flowing many 10 s km in just a day. The 1919 lava flows are also passed by. Mauna Loa is a very active volcano and here it becomes obvious on the south rift: lots of lava flows dot the area of Ocean View estates. The volcano has erupted 34 times since the year 1840. Ocean View estates offers spectacular views down to the south point, there the Kahuku fault scarp towers above the 1868 lava flows and 1887, the 1926 lava flows are close by. Looking around we could spot many older brown lava flows with stunted ohia trees on them. Ocean View estates seems like a very peaceful but a remote place to live in, it is a secret paradise until the next lava tsunami comes along.
After we passed the 1868 lava flow with small ohia bushes the road turns directly south and we continue on a smaller road that goes trough plantations and pasture fields. The countryside dries and opens up and the grasslands at south point is right ahead with its solar dried hot grasslands with numerous windswept ( krummholz ) looking ohia trees. If you are very lucky you may be able to spot a native Pueo owl sitting on a solar bleached grey stump beside the solar sorched road. When walking out to south point you really feel you have reached the end of the world, this is the southernmost point of any US state latitude 18. Ahead is only a 6000 m deep ocean that stretch all way to New Zealand, the nearest large landmass in this direction. If you look upslope there is the seemingly endless savannah grasslands that covers this peninsula Ka Lae classified as a ”semi arid tropical climate”. Upslope of that is greener tropical forest.
Mauna Loa seemed simply gigantic when I was looking upslope towards the southern rift and lots of lava flows dot the area below the 20 km long Kahuku fault. That area is sa corched lava desert with cindery Aa beaches. The edge of the Kahuku fault offers spectacular views over historical lava flows and we spent an hour there sitting in the grass enjoying the view of the immense foot of 100 000 km3 of volcano edifice. Mauna Loa goes on for many more miles underwater. My eyes looking around, south point seems desolate and lifeless, despite the wind the tropical sun is unbearable even in January down here in the lowlands. The tour party’s three minds focus mainly on thirst and swimming in that clear blue water. Four kilometers north of where we stood you find the rarest volcanic beach on the entire Island: the legendary Papakolea Beach ”green sand olivine beach” is one of the hidden treasures there. Above the breakers the tuff cone of Puʻu Mahana forms a nice bay encasing the clear blue, tempting sparkling saphire waters. The hike down to the waters edge can be messy as you stumble in phreatomagmatic olivine filled greenish tuff sand. I got olivine sand in my hiking shoes and father who is taller and heavier stumbled in the semi precious sand rolling down. Puʻu Mahana, a minion of Mauna Loa, erupted nearly 50 000 years ago and I was surprised how much deposits were still there today. We spent hours enjoying the unique olivine sand at Papakolea, being unique you are not allowed to take semi precious sand back in a bottle.
Kohala Desert – Mauna Keas summit craters – Mauna Loa Obervatory
After a week of exploring the southern part of the Island the three explorers headed northwards, because time was soon up on this part of the Island and we had hotel times on the eastern side on Big Island ( where the really fun stuff happened later ) On the way to Hilo me, father and our family friend from California decided to do Mauna Kea’s summit and to the Kohala desert and Mauna Loa in the same day while driving down to steamy green Hilo. Driving by the huge Hualalai volcano that makes Vesuvius seem like a dwarf, it’s main rift stuffed with cones makes it look like a huge overturned ship hull, we first stopped at the Kaupulehu lava flow from the year 1800. We stopped beside the lava channels, these have fantastic flow features with ”paper thin” sheets of overflows when they where filled by a raging fluid lava rivers precisely 214 years before that day. Seen from the airport area it must have been a frightening sight looking like torrents of liquid slag flowing down the mountain feeding a huge steamy ocean entry. The ”scenic point” at the road offers spectacular views over the deserts and savannah zones in the northern lowlands of the Island with numerous lava flows from Mauna Loa with the massive 1859 flow being the most prominent. Looking around there I could spot Kohala the northernmost volcano on this Island covered in a cumulus cloud castle. Looking far out to sea in the haze the blue shadow of Maui could be seen covered with another cumulus fortres. Kohala volcano towers above the kohala desert and the lovely Puako village and the Waikoloa golf hotel resorts.
The road now goes through African looking savannah bush when we drove down to Kiholo Bay. There you can find a two kilometers wide pahoehoe delta from as a result of the last phase of the 1859 eruption of Mauna Loa, there are 60 kilometers of lava tubes upslope to the vent. Hiking the glassy lava flows proved difficult in the searing lowland heat. Already by 11 am it is a heat that is hard to describe and that heat drove at least me into the ocean again. At Kiholo and Puako bays dry african looking near desert vegetation drops over crystal blue sparkling waters and I let many times the crystal blue swallow me. Such a clear blue ocean is as told: an almost sinisterly beautiful sight, and evokes the tv episode ”cruel sea” for walking with dinosaurs. It is not a totally wrong comparison because there are sharks cruising the sapphire blue. This area on Big island is harsh, hot, barren and are classified as a ”hot arid climate” the hottest on the Island it differs radically from the Hilo rainforest on the other side of the Island. Upslope in cooler areas is the dry African looking where you can explore a trachytic cone which is the Pu u wa awa a forest reserve and its massive trachytic blocky flow, this lava flow is partly covered by the Pu’uanahulu village and their golf courses. Pu u wa awa a forest reserve was a surreal sight looking rather like the landscape of southern mediterranean Spain.
The road keeps upwards going through whats now a ”temperate grassland climate” when we keept going towards Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. We did a short lunch stop at Waimea town at foot of Kohala volcano before doing Mauna Kea. At Waimea’s upslopes cool highland temperate grasslands blows in the winds with cattle grazing, it could easily have been Ireland. With a busy scheme we had not time to explore there. Mauna Loa’s immense shape is visible too from this road and sunlight shining on it can reveal information on the type of lava surface, smooth pahoehoe is shiney silvery, and rough aa lava is dark and unreflective. I remember looking at Mauna Loa, that seemed packed with recent lava flows up to saturation point. The Mauna Loa Observatory road can be found here. The climate is a ”seasonally dry temperate highland climate” and many strange native flora bushes dot the area, Mauna Loa’s 1935 pahoehoe is acessible right there. The weather was super pleasant at Saddle Roads crest when going outside during a food pause, warm and sunny but not uncomfortable like down at Waikoloa.
Our goal that day was Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. The road snakes up through colder and colder weather and increasingly more arid environments. Mauna Kea’s summit is not recommended for those that are those under 13 years of age, those who have health problems, or have recently been deep scuba diving are not advised to proceed up to the summit. Mauna Kea’s summit was an incredible sight you can see a few 100 s of km up there peering out over a Pacific Ocean peppered with trade wind cumulus. Haleakala Kohala and Mauna Loa are clearly visible I remember strongly as blue shadows with Maui almost light blue peeking above the trade wind cumulus billowing up from the warm tropical ocean far below. I remember seeing some snow patches on Mauna Loa and a few snow patches dotted the cinder cone laden landscapes on Mauna Kea’s summit when we walked around the observatories up there. It very very cold indeed walking around one of the tallest peaks in the Pacific region, I remember it was maybe just above freezing. This is the coldest climate zone in the Island of Hawaii and classified as an ” alpine desert”. Mauna Kea’s summit landscapes are quite analogous to Chile and Patagonia. Looking around the landscape is rusty, red, brown it could very well have been the altiplano of the Andes and the telescopes add more familiarity to the Andes. The volcanic landscapes on Maune Kea reminded me a lot of Etna. Mauna Kea is a post-shield volcano and erupts cooler and more gas rich magmas than Mauna Loa and Kilauea and results in landscapes that are quite similar to Etna and other alkaline volcanoes like Canaries. Mauna Keas post-shield cinder cones are different from the more fluid thoelitic composition lava landscapes of Kilauea and Mauna Loa. Similar post-shield alkalic caps covers Hualalai, and Kohala whose cinder cones makes their summits lumpy. The younger Mauna Loa and Kilauea with shallow chambers are smooth and capped by calderas instead. The day was packed before driving to the Mauna Loa observatory and later Hilo so we had only about 15 minutes or so to enjoy Mauna Keas summit and walking around the astronomical observatorium there. The drive up to Keas summit had pressured the rental car a lot and quite a bit of gas was lost on the way up, but there was more than enough for Mauna Loa which is less taxing.
Walking the summit of Kea I clearly noticed when looking towards Kilauea and Hilo many tens of km in distance the moist marine tropical air layer far below as a layer of stratocumulus with cumulus tops as warm moist air is forced up towards Loa and Keas slopes at windward side. That is what the ”green side of the Island” looks like.. below that are steamy tropical forests of lower puna and kilauea’s cloud forests in the highlands at volcano village. A night this an amazing place place to shoot the stars and in the distance far down there in the marine fog Kilaueas sinister glow can be seen from two spots if you visit at night. During the Leilani eruption four years later the glowing pyro-cumulonimbus at Leilani must have been a terrifying night scene up here. It was down there in that fog we were going just a few days later. Tired of the cold we prepared ourselves to drive down Kea and up to Mauna Loa CO2 observatory to enjoy the sights there before driving down to the steamy green Hilo. I had one last look at the astronomical observatories. It was a treat to see the round shapes of the Keck Telescopes where Nobel prize winner Andrea Ghez mapped the supermassive black hole in the center of our galaxy. It is hard to imagine there in the tropics that they have to plow the roads of heavy snow during Kona winter storms while 100 kilometers downhill at same time its hot and 30 degrees c.
The journey down to the Saddle road is ear popping and the atmospheric pressure was crushing my water bottle. The immense shape of Mauna Loa is right ahead, its swollen edifice hazy and blue in the distance, the largest volcano in the world. Mauna Loa observatory road snakes its way through lava flows that have flowed from the northern rift zone. I remember seeing the older flows being brown while younger less oxidised lava flows are fresh, shiney or dark. The landscapes reminded me of Mars or Venus. It is an completely other-worldly sight as the rental car climbed its way upwards this gigantic volcano that covers over half of the entire island. Mauna Loa is so large that its nearly impossible to see it from the ground, when we drove up the north rift the horizon swallowed up the enormous volcanic edifice, the landscape is now only lava flows, without plants. Massive Aa flows were everywhere, some oxidised and brown, many fresh and dark nearly black, they were the doings of the northern rift. Many massive fissure eruptions have many times sent fast moving channelized lava flows downhill that feed these Aa fronts. It got colder and colder as we got further up the North Rift and I do remember very odd small clouds condensing seemingly from nowhere rising from the rusty lava flows. The whole landscape is a barren wasteland of lava flows beautiful patterned, intricate shapes between recent pahoehoe and aa lava flows.
Mauna Loa s is one of the worlds most active and productive volcanoes, many historical fresh looking lava flows flowed in this region of this seemingly endless ”invisibly huge” volcano. Due to Mauna Loa’s and Kilauea’s sizes I did not get a lot of photography from their edifices as a whole who are mostly invisible from the frog perspective. The lava charred wilderness beside the road that has been built over/ cut through lava, snakes up towards to the white painted steel balls of the CO2 observatory. Mauna Loa has done over thirty historical lava flows and this local area is close to the 1899, 1843, 1935, 1975, 1942, 1852, 1880 – 1881, 1855 – 1856, 1984 flows and the 2022 lava flows. The most recent lava flows blocked the observatory road, eight years after I left the area. Some of these lava flows fed by open fiery rivers are many tens of kilometers long making them the longest recent lava flows on Earth in recent times. Mauna Loa’s lavas just like Kilauea’s are one of the hottest and most fluid on this planet. Some of these flows near the road, especially near eruptive fissures and old lava channel over flows were so fluid that the lava flows drained away leaving only thin glassy veneer left on the ground like at Nyiragongo.
It was just such a near vent ”sheet pahoehoe” that lured me into comitting my first ”crime” lured by the fluid shiney glassy crust, I kicked a small ”lava ball” thats been coated in glass, the thin crust shattered like glass into thousands pieces and took it from the flow and the basalt specimen instantly ended up in my back pack. Little did I knew back then at 19 that stealing lava rock from Hawaii is illegal as it is seen as Pele’s property. But that knowledge was simply not there and my selfish personality back then I likely would not have cared at all even if I knew that back then, today I would respect the local culture. The fluid pahoehoe that I walked on contrasted very strongly, sometimes it was runny pahoehoe that had flowed over Aa, in other places it was dark crumbly Aa that had flowed over thin smooth shiney grey pahoehoe. Mauna Loas observatory was a landscape that bothers on real surrealism. The fluid lava flows looked like spilled rusted wax. Even more surrealist is the simple knowledge that a winter snowstorms can reduce visibility to zero here and snowplows needs to remove snow while 90 kilometers downslope its over 30 degrees C in Kailua Kona for comparison. Tired of the cold and thin air at nearly 14 000 feet we decided to drive down towards the steamy tropical Hilo. We decided to skip the trails up to the Mokuaweoweo caldera that are not that far away from the observatory as that adventure would steal too much time of the day that remained whose time was important for preparations in Hilo, Big Island is quite a large place so lots of driving around if you want to see stuff at all. I regret not taking more photos from these parts of the Island.
In part two we are going to drive down to Hilo side where the most intresting stuff on this trip happened.
PHOTOS BELOW: taken by my father: some are re-printed digital ones from analog files, some are saved digital ones. All have been compressed: click on each photo to see a higher (but not full) resolution.
Kailua Kona – Captain Cook
Mauna Kea
Mauna Loa
Green Sand Beach
Jesper Sandberg, February 2025
First third of the first part, will read on:
Thank you very much for explaining the whole island. It was in no way clear to me that the island is five times as large as Tenerife. I thought you can do a day trip there – out of the question. I was not aware of this feature either:
“On the Island there are tropical rainforests, spooky highland cloudforests, highland temperate grasslands, hot lava deserts, tropical savannahs, monsoon forests, hot shrubland, to seasonal snow on the peaks of Mauna Loa and Kea. You can find any type of climate.”
So, it is like a micro-continent, in a way.
Then I think you have a beautiful father to take you there twice and also to Etna, Sicily. He gave you s.th. for the rest of your life, and is now giving s.th. to us, the readers. So a sincere thank you from me. Will go on in a minute, just grab a coffee.
The tour covers the western parts of the Big Island ( the dry side ) we are saving the really fun parts for part 2 🙂
I been on Big Island many many times last time was just a few years ago, this visit was ultra special for many reasons compared to the other reasons, but by current days I having no time at all for that stuff now, the Hawaii Island with its giant volcanoes, diverse enviroments, good diving and peaceful small town atmosphere makes this my favorite place on Earth it was very hard to leave, despite its size a near complete lack of jobs and fast avaible hospitals healthcare makes it a very hard place indeed to live in: it is a sparsely populated tropical paradise. While the Big island is sizable It woud be good if all Hawaiian islands where connected as one Island landmass even all way up to Kauai.. that woud indeed make Hawaii a much more realistic place for me to move to in terms of jobs and healthcare.. It woud be good to get partner intrested in volcanoes too
Big Island is sizable it can swallow large parts of the Neatherlands and most of Belgium so yes a trip there is many hours in a rental car if you wants to see stuff
“Sandy beaches and bottoms are ”lifeless deserts” while the rocky lava bottoms of the Big Island are a good anchor for corals and hiding spots for animals. The result is a teeming paradise in a clear blue watery desert of the pacific.”
Yes, probably a paradise for divers. I looked at some species and also found s.th. special:
Lantern shark, a very small Hawaiian shark, 24-26 inches.
Good description of Mauna Loa
“The edge of the Kahuku fault offers spectacular views over historical lava flows and we spent an hour there sitting in the grass enjoying the view of the immense foot of 100 000 km3 of volcano edifice. Mauna Loa goes on for many more miles underwater. My eyes looking around, south point seems desolate and lifeless.”
“The legendary Papakolea Beach ”green sand olivine beach” is one of the hidden treasures there.”
You have two pics in here, right, one of the beach and one of the olivine sand?
“In part two we are going to drive down to Hilo side where the most interesting stuff on this trip happened.”
I think this part was already very exiting and very beautiful. I cannot ever go there with these temperatures, and even more so do I enjoy reading this piece and getting to know the island this way.
My favorite picture:
Very good piece, full of love for the island, thank you very much.
Around 1000 m up om the Kona lee side is the ideal zone for your off – europe retirement housing : up there ) thats basicaly like summer in Scandinavia all year around everyday. Yes thats the papakolea sand photo
😒
Need no “retirement housing”
Am very healthy, but reluctant with such heat spots.
Its your housing when you have done your whole career in Scandinavia 🙂 1000 meters upp is ideal hawaii climate on the lee side
I’m starting eruption watch for fissure eruption number 8 in Reykjanes. Microseismicity picking up a bit, but difficult to say if it’s just because the weather is better than last few days where weather might have affected seismometer sensitivity. Meanwhile also reading thru the newest post.Thanks for the work @ Jesper!
Thanks for the article! Looking forward to your encounter with active Pu’u’o’o flows.
The road up to the summit of Mauna Kea is not really recommended for rental cars. Four-wheel drive may be needed.
It seems to be fine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihz902LDF38
Nothing like this:
Col d Isouard, France, danger of landslides
Or Gavia, Italy, awful, much too narrow, needs traffic light regulation
And this has made some wives on the passenger seats cry as it goes down on both sides and is like a ridge:
The hogsback, scenic byway 12, Route 12, Utah
and this can make you very unhappy when a camper van apprroaches:
Col de l-Iseran, France
The steep part of the road is unpaved, and can have large ridges at times from the grading. Rental companies tend not allow you to drive there -so if you get stuck you are on your own. Observatory cars use four wheel drive on the unpaved part. At the summit the road is paved again.
Crowd Control
“Um, NO! We did Mauna Kea in a rental car (Nissan Altima) with NO ISSUES whatsoever. The dirt road is pretty darn smooth and really not THAT steep. In fact, if it was any smoother, it would be paved! I have done FAR more serious dirt roads at home in California with my swapped Civic (big, low hanging engine – no ground clearance). White Mountain Road, for instance, is a FAR greater challenge. But you will see PLENTY of sedans taking that road and NO stupid signs telling you that you MUST HAVE four wheel drive. The way I see it, those signs telling you that you need 4wd on Mauna Kea are just a cheap attempt at crowd control. Just take it easy, and you will be fine.”
Quora, “Is a 4WD required in practice to drive up Mauna Kea on Hawaii (driving, Hawaii, travel)?”
One of three, all say NO, all American.
The problem is, that in most other places on that island 4WD is unneccessary, but a convertible might be nice.
Please, don’t encourage people to break the rules. Unless things have changed recently, rental companies do not allow you to take the car beyond the visitor centre, halfway up the mountain. If you go further, you lose all insurance cover and are liable for the full(!) cost of the car (meaning: price of a new car) plus recovery(!). You are also likely to be intercepted at the visitor centre, since only 4-wheel drives are allowed beyond there. The road can be treacherous and conditions can change quickly (I speak from experience.) There have been a fair number of accidents. And just as important, two-wheel-drive cars damage the surface with their lack of grip and their brakes can overheat going down. You can (or used to be able to) rent four-wheel drives which did allow you to go up, but it depends on your company. Note that a 30-min to 1 hour acclamatization stop at the visitor centre is required to avoid altitude sickness and their are age and health requirements.
Preaching to people? Most people know how to plan and read lots of stuff.
I would – if I ever went there – drive on around the west with a nice convertible as usual and go up to Mauna Kea from Hilo with a tour guide, very simple.
I guess the height is the main problem.
VC will not encourage activities that are against the rules, illegal, or cause danger to self and others. We do not know the particulars of Jesper’s or your trip, and can’t judge those, but we do kindly request not to encourage others on this blog. Volcanoes are fool-proof. People are not.
Dont worry we took saftey very seriously on the flowing lava flows .. even If I was very excited I knew exactly how these lava flows works too! Im so excited for part 2 its not dangerous IF you are as familar with it as I am.. but its not totaly safe either.. its a watch and judge situation on the lava flow and learn how it works, watch watch, observe
I wants to share this for part 2 🙂
We where sucessful anyway the car in the photos are not our rental one it was not a jeep
In Hunter S. Thompson’s “The Curse of Lono”, he writes about taking a Ferrari 308 on the Saddle Road from Kona to Hilo on a quiet Sunday morning, attempting to ‘break the record’–totally hyperbolic because at that time, the Saddle Road was unpaved…
Most cars in the US are 4wd monster trucks anyway, even in Hawaii. Lots of Toyota Tacomas. We have exactly the same in Australia, Toyota Hilux (basically same as Tacoma) and Ford Ranger. But I was a little surprised to see so many in a comparitively tiny place like Hawaii, the roads are actually in great condition and 50 mph (90 km/h) speed limit.
Its a shame there isnt more investment into charging infrastructure. Even a 10 year old Tesla could drive around the Big Island like 4 times at the speed limit…
Reykjanes is still in the run-up. It may not be far off. And Kilauea has stayed orange – a resumption seems imminent. If both go off at the same time, who will win the battle for viewing figures?
Given the funding problems in the US, HVO may have to run advert-breaks in the eruption coverage. Or an ad-free eruption subscription service? HVO-prime?
Brilliant article, Jesper! Very many thanks!
Kilauea Episode 11 is probably going to happen today or tomorrow. And Sundhnjukur is also likely to erupt in the next 1-2 days.
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19vZ2mtDTT/
Problem is, if the next eruption isnt this week it could end up being the biggest of the whole series by a lot, and its unlikely to go so far north as in August when there is still a lot of rift to the south with no activity since the start…
The Sylingarfell South webcam has a good view on the possible eruption location:
So, (Q), as the northern volcanoes are older, and it is now the southern ones plus Lōʻihi, is the direction south or south-west now?
South or SSE of course. Next kink? No answer as usual.
Saturday
22.02.2025 21:04:44 64.663 -17.468 1.6 km 5.2 99.0 3.8 km NE of Bárðarbunga
Interesting! There had been some earlier activity there today. Quite shallow.
Yes, and in the quake map they make a perfect circle…
When I looked yesterday, it made a perfect ring. Now there have been more added, including the 5.2 and a third star.
looks like one of the many in the ring fault around the caldera floor/piston block. expecting the next set to happen on the opposing side of the caldera block.
anyone know a good source for icelandic earthquake data? ideally with highly accurate latidude and longitude data? because the greek data for santorini is showing that you need better accuracy than what i was able to find
If you click on the tab above the map saying rabke, it will give you the location and depth.
The tab saying table
https://en.vedur.is/earthquakes-and-volcanism/earthquakes/vatnajokull/#view=table
https://api.vedur.is/?urls.primaryName=Skj%C3%A1lftal%C3%ADsa
There’s an api where you can request quake data an get the response in a nice JSON-format. There are interactive example queries that run directly from the page. Have fun!
And another two M3s in the last couple hours. Fairly shallow also.
Midnight in Iceland so we won’t know much until dawn at least.
Great article, Jesper! So proud of you! ♥
The moment tensor for the Bárðarbunga M5.2 is, perhaps unsurprisingly, typical of a CLVD event; I would point the finger at the ring fault:
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000pfi9/moment-tensor
I’m losing count of the number of M5s in the last year.
During the Holuhraun eruption, there was a direct relationship between the subsidence and the cumulative seismic moment. Even though much of the slip was aseismic (geodetic moment was a factor 10-100 larger than the seismic moment released by quakes), there was still a linear relationship between subsidence and seismic moment. I wonder if the same relationship is true also for the reverse motion? Can we by the relationship between subsidence and seismic moment during the collapse figure out how much the plug has been pushed back up by looking at the cumulative post eruption seismic moment? Or is the aseismic proportion different?
There’s been five M 5.1-5.2 earthquakes on Bardarbunga’s caldera if we count from the 3 Sept event last year onwards, which is a lot. I think it could be close to a 1/10 of the caldera collapse recovered if the displacement stays proportional to the magnitude. There’s been a total of 15 such earthquakes since the collapse, or about 1/4 recovered in total under the same assumption. The caldera must be rising MUCH faster now than in previous years.
Speaking of caldera collapses and vertical CLVD quakes. Did you check the newest satellite images of Fentale? The M6 caused a nearly circular block with a 1.5km diameter in the eastern end of the caldera floor to drop. Switch to the SWIR layer and you also see very obvious landslides along the entire caldera scarp. If you take screenshots from before and after the quake and flip between them, the difference is clearly visible.
There still is an graph online in which Bardars quakes are drawn since the eruption Holuhraun stopped. I think IMO s comment years back was, that since the M5+ began, Bardarbunga is inflating again.
The graph shows the quakes come in pulses, some are fairly deep!
Source
Thanks Jesper, a very nice trip down memory lane. My two weeks there in 2010 were memorable and relentlessly exciting. The Big Island is a must-do trip for anybody with even casual interest in volcanoes, landscapes, unique cultures, and biomes. I am looking forward to Part 2!
What Jesper has done here for me and some folks around me is painted gold. I always rejected going there also thinking the place as five big heaps of volcanics and sediment.
Jesper achieved to make it attractive to somebody like me.
Yes its a very beautyful place indeed… Google Earth is useful for exploration
Compare, same colours:
Lassen 1995
Picture poetry
I miss the crystal clear water, the black lava cliffs and the small towns
Thanks for sharing your experience on a volcano voyage to “The Volcano” of Earth, Jesper!
I’ve watched parts of Big Island with Google Streetview. F.e. the road to Mauna Kea summit and the lava flows of Mauna Loa 1859 and Hualai 1800-1801. Radial eruptions of Mauna Loa are very exiting, but happen very rarely. They can send lava to areas that are usually “lava safe”.
Mauna Kea is nearly extinct. The level of its magma production is much less than the normal post-shield stage and the current state of Haleakala and Hualalai. While the latters may do eruptions during our century, Mauna Kea is very unlikely, maybe in more distant future.
The only real sea cliffs of Big Island are on Kohala volcano. Kohala had mountain collapses 250,000-300,000 years ago that left a cliff behind as the Wikipedia article shows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohala_(mountain)#History
This is part 1 we save the best parts for part two : )
You happen to know what this blossom or plant is called and whether it is a wild plant or a cultivated plant? Interested as I saw it on another Pacific island.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpinia_purpurata
“Pink ginger”.
You are great, thank you. I have seen it (online) in Arawa, Bougainville, and that fits, look:
“Alpinia purpurata, commonly referred to as red ginger, ostrich plume and pink cone ginger, is a ginger native to Maluku and the southwest Pacific islands.”
“In Hawaii, the flowers of red ginger are grown commercially for sale, and have been associated with the Hamakua area for a long time.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpinia_purpurata
So I guess when Hawaii was settled the early settlers brought seeds. The alternative is of course that seafarers took it there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Hawaii
No idea.. Big Island is FULL of foregin tropical plants
Thank you Jesper, SO beautiful!
Iceland teasing with water vapour as usual, but with sudden landris, must be getting close. IMO hasn’t yet commented. But it is Sunday. ;>)
Bravo Jesper!!!
Waiting for Part 2!
I was wondering whether there had ever been anything that large before, and yes, Maui, Molokaʻi, Lānaʻi, and Kahoʻolawe are thought to have been one single island with seven shield volcanoes which had 14,600 km2 compared to the 11,672 km2 of Big Island.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maui_Nui
This is Kure Atoll, the last visible island of the Hawaiian chain
And Laysan further east on the way to becoming an atoll
And Hawaiian Monk Seal having his peace and quiet on Laysan
Useful timelines in here.
Midway i.e. 2,432 km, age 27.7 + 0.6
https://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/HCV/haw_formation.html
These are ULTRA CLEAR waters too 🙂 Hawaiian chain is so isolated, so far from runoff or nutrient influxes so the seawaters barely contains any nutrients at all unlike seas closer to the mainland, in Midway in high summer when thermocline is strongest you may have a underwater visibility of 80 meters or even more! thats near the maximum visibility in the ocean and so for pure water physicaly anyway, its suprising that there are any life at all in these crystal clear waters, there is a lack of nutrients like phosphorus.. ” ultra oligotrophic ocean”
https://earth.google.com/web/@19.58906005,-155.9740198,-0.51678654a,441.84120539d,35y,99.02456804h,70.76251348t,0r/data=CgRCAggBQgIIAEoNCP___________wEQAA
https://earth.google.com/web/@19.90344124,-155.90883014,-0.51679611a,701.34789867d,35y,148.47286155h,71.29480758t,0r/data=CgRCAggBQgIIAEoNCP___________wEQAA
Its ultra clear too among the Big Island Kona Coast as well, lots of lava and few sandy beaches adds clarity in late winter its around 25 c in the ocean and in late summer it can warm up to a near 28 c in the seawater, Hawaii is very tropical with warm waters but the waters are not as warm as the equatorial seas near Palau or Maldives that can reach a max of 32 c. I found it pleasant to swim in Hawaii with water temperatures in late december in Kona being analougus to earliest july in the mediterranean sea
You’ve been to Laysan? I’ve been to the Laysan… in a sense. I can go tomorrow and get some pics, if you wish.
The erosion is very fast too Maui Nui, it lost most of its size in just a few 100 s of thousands of years its a combination of erosion and sinking seafloor as the plate moves away from the mantle heat, these immense volcanic islands does not last very long at all in geological terms
Seems more subsidence than erosion, most of the old Maui Nui surface is pretty smooth, and in places particularly closer to Oahu there are what look like drowned reefs near the drop off. Interesting as neither Maui or the Big Island actually have similar reefs today, but Oahu and the Penguin Bank (maybe part of West Molokai) were most active in the late Pliocene and perhaps the water was warmer than today.
Im also not sure how much actual erosion really affects the volcanoes too. Obviously in places there are deep valleys, like on Kohala, but most of the rest of Kohala is actually pretty untouched just old looking. And some places like on Maui or the Ninole Hills of Mauna Loa the valleys have been filled in again by continued volcanism. The really weathered and eroded volcanoes are either very old (Kaua’i) or have been mostly dissected by slumping and mass flank failure. It also needs to be considered that Kauai is old enough to experience a couple million years of erosion in the slightly warmer climate of the Pliocene, so may have been worn down more than the new islands will be at the same age point. It also seems to be much less rift dominated than the younger volcanoes, just one huge caldera, and this may affect its erosion pattern.
Even going back to the drowned older islands, they are nearly intact. Seems the fate of the Hawaiian Islands is mostly to just sink beneath the waves mostly intact just smoothed over and capped with coral. If not this, then huge parts of them fall off, and traditional erosion is a distant 3rd. For the youngest islands periodic glaciation might also be a factor.
Indeed, subsidence is the main event after a former “Big Island” has left the plume area. The plume pushes the island (and seamount) much above the natural altitude. When a “Big Island” drifts beyond the plume area, it sinks by some kilometers down in the ocean.
Erosion and collapses add to the development, but can’t explain it allone. The last stage of Hawaii’s island is, when the basaltic island sinks below sealevel and an Atoll forms. One example for this is the Midway Atoll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midway_Atoll
Subarieal land erosion is of course most present on the wet sides of the Hawaiian islands where you can have many meters of rain in a few months, making these areas some of the worlds very wettest places specialy so for wet side of Maui and Big Island thats very tall and so catches alot of otropgraphic rainfall. Big Island nearly lacks erosional features on even its wet rainforest sides due to the obiviously high level of volcanic activity that resurfaces the land. But nearly all Hawaiian Islands, with only small parts of Big Island ( at least those that haves wet sides ) or are fully wet shows severe erosion on the windward sides, its a constant rainmaker, in Hilo it was cloudy all the time when I was there. The drier sides on the other islands shows much lesss erosion for soure as its pretty much a semi arid desert climate for millions of years as long as the Islands are tall and large enough to have a dry side, some of them have true desert erosinal features where erosion is slow.
But you are right that the ultimate destruction of a Hawaiian volcano is sinking into the crust, the whole litopshere sinks when it leaves the heat source, the canyon landforms formed by rainfall are smoothed out by waves of course when an Island sinks below the waters. The huge mass of the Big Island will always be there, there is not much erosion under the sea, but it will become a huge submarine platform, Maui – Nui is connected all way up to Oahu as a single gigantic submarine lava pile after Kauai formed the magma output really got very strong after some time of of lower output. If magma output keeps being huge one coud imagine that all ” future to be islands” that will exist in the far far future will all be connected with the oldest volcano in the northen edge and the youngest in the south, a constant converour chain for some distance with few gaps between them and only after 600 kilometers they fade into smaller induvidual islands, Miocene times at Midway seemed very magma starved compared to the mega output of today
Wonder what Hawai’i Island looked like 1.2 MY ago.
Probably not much, maybe not even an island yet. Oldest rocks of Kohala are about that old but I dont remember if those are from offshore sampling.
The oldest rocks above sea level on the big usland are under 1 mya if I remember correctly, so its possible there was no ‘big island’ at all yet.
Chad is right. In million years:
Big Island
Kilauea 0-0.4
Mauna Kea 0.375 + 0.05
Kohala 0.43 + 0.02
Maui
Haleakala 0.75 + 0.04
Kahoolawe > 1.03 + 0.18
https://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/HCV/haw_formation.html
: ) I wonder where the original camera is today I remeber a rather heavy ( but not fat ) father stumbling in the slippery river boat and it vanished into the flowing mekong river in Vietnam.. ploop.. and it vanished into the brown flowing currents as father lost the grip. It coud be buried today under river sediments which is likey or the river coud have carried the camera wast distances which is just as likey, likey its stuck in debries on the bottom, the camera housing is likey ruined from nearly 10 years of water corrosion and abrasion from sand. Its likey resting in near pitch blackness knowing how cloudy the river is, the memory card inserted in the tight slot ( holding the original lava photos for part 2 and 200 other photos from my family ) coud still be completey healthy today as it fares better against the harsh elements in Mekong and is protected sealed very hard in a water tight slot at least until some hard pressure. Memory card coud perhaps be viable for 20 years more until data starts to decay if its well sealed compartment does not degrade soon. I doubt the camera will ever be found..and its of course impossible to get it back. The camera its many meters down perhaps 10 and the water was quite fast flowing that day…it may have also been sucked into a giant catfish who knows.. its likey been washed miles miles downriver by today
Lucky the lava photos where saved..
The lost camera will last MUCH longer in the protected vaccum of a lava tube on the Moon than it will ever do in the active living enviroment of the Mekong River. In a protected cave on the moon where decay processes are ”frozen” it may last until the sun becomes a red giant even! protected from micrometeors and radiation
Poor camera! it wants to come home!!! with all our photos inside ( lucky the lava photos and many Hawaiian where saved! ) before loosing the camera as analog prints and later re – scanned as digital ones from photo. But the originals have much higher resolution but the re – scanned prints became suprisingly good and haves a softer look
I guess I have to be content that we still haves the lava materials today at least and I am.. happy they where not swallowed as well by the river
The sunken camera is likey now deeply buried in the sediment fan by now but we at least got the most important photos saved for part 2
Lucky we made analog copies before we lost that camera that we have rescanned! otherwise I woud have nothing to show at all either for part 1 or part 2 the photos helps me to remeber as well even if those memories are quite hazy today
Hreinn Beck’s site (https://vafri.is/quake/) published an East/Up movement of approx. 35mm, but the next, latest reading is back to what seems normal.
That odd result doesn’t appear on the Uni’s site (https://strokkur.raunvis.hi.is/gps/8h.html). Because they detected an anomaly?
Was this caused by barometric pressure, or something else? That’s all I can gather from what I’ve read, most is too technical for me.
If anyone answers me, please explain like I’m a five-year-old, thank you!
id could be that weather affected the reading… like snow on the gps antenna … 🙂
Thanks Jesper for a marvelous tour of a place I don’t know. Not only the volcanoes and the astronomical observatories but history too, since James Cook lost his life in that bay.
(Ok yes I was on Hawaii briefly, once, at midnight, in a transit lounge on the way from Newcastle to Canada. Not much opportunity to see the sights!)
Part 2 will be fun! and the original camera is likley inside a catfish by now
Jesper,
Thanks for taking me back and revisit our multiple visits to the Big Island. I think I will need to get my pictures out, or book another trip to one of our favorite places to visit. My oldest daughter and I finished our scuba qualifications with our free dives there. You can dive 80 feet deep while the boat is 50 feet from the coast in some places.
We only got close to the fissure 8 eruption staying in a rental house. Sleeping in a house when the sky was glowing orange, was wild.
Thanks Again
Mac
So, that is Newcastle, Australia, right?
I always had you in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
Yes. We’re a town of about 300,000 and named after the other Newcastle when the initial colonists found outcropping coal seams. Late summer here, and very pleasant! No volcanoes though.
Lots of volcanoes bordering your plate though 😊
Plus New Zealand south-east
Undara/McBride is an active volcano, last active 7000 years ago. Kind of half way between a shield volcano and monogenetic field. Also the Atherton and Nulla volcanic fields in the same area, both still active but rare eruptions.
Newer Volcanics west of Melbourne too, more well known but not quite as impressive imo.
In the Holocene there are 3 confirmed eruptions, 11000, 7000 and 5200 years ago. The number of eruptions young enough to have been witnessed (under 80,000 years old) is probably more than 20. Toomba volcano erupted 12 km3 of lava at pretty low rate and likely lasted decades to possibly a century, there were probably people who lived their entire lives with it erupting in the background non stop.
Anyway its probably a very loose 4000 year average gap between eruptions combined across Australia. So its actually not entirely unreasonable to have something sooner than later with the last eruptions 5200 years ago. Far as I know most youngish vents arent actually dated well or at all. But having 2 Holocene eruptions at Newer Volcanics, any extrapolation puts a 3rd at around now. Risk is still very low but maybe should be considered seriously.
That’s Victoria. I live in NSW… 😀
Where I grew up a bit to the north of Newcastle we had three volcanoes. Named North Brother, Middle Brother and South Brother. There’s a road up to the top of Middle Brother, with a fine vista over the coastal plain. Their age is roughly 212±4.4 Ma though.
That is geography and state borders. With a bigger one in the Taupo-VZ you would both be unhappy with the right winds.
If you go from the north-end of Sumatra east to the Tonga-Kermadec-Ridge and then south along the east coast of both New Zealand islands and then close the square as an area – a geological region – you have more volcanoes than most continents with the exception of Latin America and exceptions like Big Island and Iceland.You had dark-red sunsets when HTHH erupted.
Just think bigger. In terms of the Commonwealth you have even more volcanoes.
You can even die. With a 7 or 8 from Taupo – lets not dwell on this one though – you well, you figure. The same goes for Toba. You are right in the middle between Toba and Taupo. And Kuwae. Enjoy.
No volcanoes in this Newcastle either (thankfully)! Just plenty of dolerite from the whin sill dikes, and plenty of coke balls near the old railway lines (a remnant of the coal-mining past).
Big Island is a volcanic pile and not a continent
Jesper,
Thanks for taking me back and revisit our multiple visits to the Big Island. I think I will need to get my pictures out, or book another trip to one of our favorite places to visit. My oldest daughter and I finished our scuba qualifications with our free dives there. You can dive 80 feet deep while the boat is 50 feet from the coast in some places.
We only got close to the fissure 8 eruption staying in a rental house. Sleeping in a house when the sky was glowing orange, was wild.
Thanks Again
Mac
Hector will probably understand the whole text, I get parts of it, very interesting, found on VD:
“Il rollback della placca in subduzione causa un’estensione crostale significativa, che viene accomodata principalmente nella regione di Santorini-Amorgos. I dati GPS indicano un tasso di estensione di circa 4 mm all’anno (Figura 6, Serpelloni et al., 2021).”
https://ingvvulcani.com/2025/02/07/i-terremoti-a-santorini-isole-cicladi-grecia-febbraio-2025/
Also from VD:
“The latest quakes show a trend of migration in epicenter locations towards the SW, clustered along the eastern escarpment of the submarine tectonic graben between Santorini-Anafi in the southwest and Amorgos-Asptipalea to the northeast.”
Scroll down to seventh picture, map: Center of cluster between Anhydros Fault and Santorini-Anafi Basin:
https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/santorini/current-activity.html
As told: Dont worry we took saftey very seriously on the flowing lava flows .. even If I was very excited I knew exactly how these lava flows works too! Im so excited for part . its not that dangerous IF you are as familar with these lava flows as I am.. but its not totaly safe either.. its a watch and judge situation on the lava flow and learn how it works, watch watch, observe. For a person with no knowledge about an active pahoehoe field, then it woud be a dangerous area to walk in ( thats why you needs a guide ) but I myself and father coud have done it without a guide as we knows how these lava flows works and where you can walk and where you cannot…
I wants to share this for part 2 🙂
I’d assume that volcano interested persons like you indeed take the risks seriously. It is more dangerous for people without appropriate knowledge (and interest) who are on hunt for crazy selfies or adventure stories.
Personally I prefer the challenge by risks of nature to risks of civilization.
I becamed quite crazed too at the flows but I knew what it was ( how it works ) at least
The Rise and Fall of the Pineapple Empire
and
Pineapples in the Current Day, Finding Them Fresh in Hilo, and a Family Farm Tour Nearby
Today, only a few Hawaiian pineapple farms remain, most of them on Maui and Oahu. One such company, the Hawaii Pineapple Company, made their reputation growing the extra gold “Hawaiian Crown” pineapple, a variety so uniquely sweet that the name is even trademarked. Started by two native Hawaiians who met as high schoolers in Honolulu, they brought decades of studying horticulture and tropical agriculture to their homegrown crops, cultivated without GMOs or pesticides. They were featured by Whole Foods Market for their “Love Local” video series, highlighting their hands-on approach to growing pineapples and cacao.
Although the Hawaii Pineapple Company is winding down the pineapple production side of their business, their sustainability-minded and Aloha ethos still carries on at their family farm just north of Hilo.
https://5thstohana.com/the-sweet-history-of-pineapples-in-hawaii
“Much like the wine grapes and coffee that still thrive in the rich volcanic soil surrounding our Volcano vacation rental, pineapples were once Hawaii’s “king” crop. And although their heyday has come and gone, you can still taste plenty of fresh pineapple during your visit, a flavor embodying the tropical sweetness of the Big Island.” from piece
plus
https://www.volcanocafe.org/volcano-coffee-2/
And for Jesper
https://www.drjohnlapuma.com/wellness-and-health/the-surprising-health-benefits-of-pineapple/
Its blossom
A part of weather of California
Pineapple Express is a specific recurring atmospheric river both in the waters immediately northeast of the Hawaiian Islands and extending northeast to any location along the Pacific coast of North America.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pineapple_Express
The pineapple and sugar cane industry collapsed a very long time ago in Hawaii Island
The big one. The piece is about the small guys revitalizing it.
During Episode 10 Kilauea deflated little, because the episode itself was minor and short. Inflation is approaching the level, when next episode becomes possible:
The life webcam shows (in my eyes) already the slowly beginning Episode 11. The vent is very light with probably a rising magma lake: https://www.youtube.com/usgs/live
https://www.youtube.com/usgs/live
Tilt is now equal, and both vents are glowing bright. I would be surprised if E11 doesnt happen today. If it does take a few more days then this might be the most powerful episode since day 1…
Even still, I expect fountains above the rim this time. Seems even the small episodes are very intense now and the south vent is probably closing up while the north vent is getting wider. Already of Feb 7 the volume of lava was 40 million m3, and there has been 2 more episodes since, it is probably closer to 50 million now in just 2 months. Probably going to be over 0.1 km3 by May or June, and possibly also over 1000 meters elevation at the vents at that point too, same as in 2018…
I’m glad to finally get to see all the photos you took on Big Island. I have never seen such blue water.
Wait for part 2 ( for the really fun stuff )
Was a bit quite around Fentale/Dofan since that M6.0 on the 14th but today it picked up a bit once again, a M5.3, M4.7 and 2 M4.3’s to the north east side of Fentale.
Yes, USGS has a moment tensor for the 5.3, and it’s another event with quite a bit of CLVD in it – 63% DC:
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/us7000pfpk/moment-tensor
For the Australians:
When the British came there were an estimated 100.000 Maori in New Zealand. And in Australia, there were – evidently hard to tell – between 300.000 and 1 million aborigenes.
In the United States the estimate for the onset of colonisation is between 8million and 100 million indigenous people. At the end of the 20th century scholars tended to an estimate of 50 million.
As according to the theory of man coming from Afar, migration proceeded towards Asia crossing over to the Americas in the Younger Dryas these numbers might mean that word of mouth might have had it that the continent down south had had some catastrophes. I know you have no pretty ongoing volcanoes, but you have the biggest volcanic eruptions in history as neighbours. That is unique. After what I have seen in some papers, most of Toba though was carried to India and only some to the South China Sea.
Nobody knows anything about your third neighbor, Kuwae, it is only a suspect for the mystery eruption 1452/53.
If you also count Antarctica you are uniquely surrounded by really big guys. They are on your balcony which is going around your house.
And in your backyard you have Big Ben. This is really yours. Pretty guy
“Over 600 earthquakes were recorded at Campi Flegrei, Italy, between February 17 and 23, 2025, with the largest measuring M3.2. Around 1 cm (0.4 inches) of ground uplift was observed in the area of maximum deformation, coinciding with the onset of an earthquake swarm on February 15.”
https://watchers.news/2025/02/25/earthquake-swarm-and-ground-uplift-at-campi-flegrei-italy/
These pulse swarms have been getting stronger since 2023. These isn’t good and I hope the area is prepared.
Sorry Tallis, but I know you can take it: If they prevent further research there, i.e. bore holes to find out more about the situation, we can f—— ignore their probably lacking preparation and fate.
Do read this:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-huge-italian-volcano-could-be-ready-to-erupt/
Next episode at Kilauea started around 18:30 local time tonight (04:30 UTC)
Fountaining is rapidly increasing in height.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oG5zz9Sjw3E&pp=ygUUa2lsYXVlYSB2b2xjYW5vIGxpdmU%3D
18:26 on the live webcam you can see the start of the lava flow, before any lava fountain is visible. It looks like the running hot iron in an iron furnace.
The vent has a lava canyon towards the caldera. There lava can run quietly, before the main eruption begins.
Yes but the scale of this is enromous! the vent can swallow the football stadium in Oahu so if you where closeup at the lava river and looking, poking it maybe not as fluid as it may seem, still its a very very runny lava of course. very fluid was the overturns a few weeks ago in the stagant lava pond looked like water flowing around! but that was also over on a scale thats many many 100 meters, but I also seen one centimeter thin despoists at Mauna Ulu where lava flows drained into empty fissure dykes so its a very fluid lava indeed
Its likey just as fluid as Mauna Ulu and Nyiragongo this lava is very gas rich so appear frothy and swollen when it erupts, gassy Kilauea spatter up at vents looks like frothy stuff, while gas free littoral bubble bursts at ocean entry lava tubes looks like fluid paint… or even coloured water
If have the impression that first magma/lava growths inside the vent like a slowly rising lava lake. Gas sits deeper in the system and pushes liquid magma out quietly first, before the gas arrives and makes big lava “Champagner” fountains.
If the vent gets wider it will start to look like the giant overflowing lava lakes in Fagradalsfjall in Iceland in 2021 thats a very likey evolution scenario indeed of this summit eruption of Kilauea, and unlike Iceland there is no deep plate spreading boundary to steal the magma in Hawaii. So it will keep erupting in halemaumau until magma moves down to ERZ. So far the vent is quite narrow and makes big fountains, but it may erode into an open shaft as the year goes by perhaps
The episodes remind a bit to Fagradalsfjall’s “Lava Geysir” in summer 2021. There were pauses and then spectacular tall (200m high) lava fountains. They were somewhat gasdriven.
This is probably also the case for the present Kilauea episodes. Gravity is a big force for volcanoes. Gas content in magma helps to more than counterbalance gravity and force magma up. It looks as if recently the gas pushes out the gas-free magma first, and then the more gas-rich magma follows and does big lava fountains.
Yes very fluid indeed! at least from my analysis of drainback features at Mauna Ulu and 1974 lava flows
When the fountains are tall this very fluid lava turns into semi – aa quite fast
The tallest ~200m high lava fountains probably deposit tephra and lava bombs outside the normal realm of the eruption, even outside the caldera. This facilitates the collection of lava samples by HVO’s geologists.
The webcams make it difficult for us to see the flight of tephra, but it’s still possible in the dark night.
Quite a few quakes south of Minahasa Peninsula, Sulawesi, one 6.1 eight hours ago, all in shallow depths between 10 and ~16 km, in the Maluku Sea, probably near the Gorontalo Basin, south of the Gorontalo fault.
Some literature, map of thrust and faults and normal distribution of earthquake epicenters for the interested, free download:
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/b-the-distribution-of-earthquake-epicentres_fig2_301667809
Wow, fountains are WAY higher than the rim.now, fallout might even be landing near the thermal image webcam. And the south vent is also active again.
I love Lauoho ehuehu a Pele.
It looks like a major episode, while Episode 10 was a minor one. The violent big lava fountain compensates a bit the relatively small previous eruption.
HVO observed a maximum height of 500-600 feet, so close to 200m.
If the episodes continue this way, sooner or later new lava will cover the whole Kilauea caldera until the NE cliff below Volcano House and east border to Kilauea Iki. It would be a great image, to see the whole big caldera as one glowing giant lava field.
The southern exit of the Kilauea Caldera is relatively low. Maybe lava will rather go out here than to Kilauea Iki. In the south there is the Holoholoakolea valley (or canyon?):
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Holoholoak%C5%8Dlea/@19.3929387,-155.297858,15z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x7953d9fe075105f5:0x8915221451cc52ea!8m2!3d19.3929393!4d-155.2875368!16s%2Fg%2F1vcl3zd0!5m1!1e4?entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDIyMy4xIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
It is the valley, where 1971 lava flew during eruptions. If lava leaves Kilauea Caldera here, it would go towards the 9/1971 SWRZ eruption location:
If the lava builds up as a shield, which it does appear to be doing, then it will probably overflow the south and southwest caldera rim before the flat below Volcano House. The flat is lower, but only slightly, and the vent is right next to the wall on the southwest side. I worked it out that for lava to flow towards Volcano House without overflowing the caldera rim behind the vent (so already above the Keanakako’i side) it would need to be a 2 degree slope. Kilauea as a whole is twice that steep and Mauna Ulu is locally much steeper than this
So basically, its probably going to overflow nultiple ways to the southwest and south before it even touches the north caldera wall again.
The lava level has to cross the 3500 feet line to flood the whole caldera or let a lava flow exit the caldera. 3500 feet are 1066 meters, so still ~100 meters to go:
Yes, 100 meters to go. But to fill that 100 meters would take only about 0.3-0.4 km3. And the cones are griowing much faster, the top is 43 meters above the surrounding floor so is already probably over 1 km elevation. The vents are also quite elevated, not as much as above but probably something like 970-980 meters elevation.
The episodes are too short for a fast growth. We have to wait a while as long as Kilauea doesn’t change its behaviour.
Pu’u O’o 1983 started with episodic behaviour in January and shifted in February to more continuous behaviour. Can the summit change the same way?
Its not any different being continuous or episodic, Pu’u O’o grew into a 250 meter tall cone surrounded by a multiple km wide lava shield, and flows up to 14 km away covering like 50 km2 in only 3 years, and only actually erupting on about 45 of those days. The effusive stage covered about the same area in the same time but it was much less in only 40 days. The episodes are brief but the eruption rate is huge so ends up being the same.
Yes the summit can be episodic, 1959 would have become a shield if the ERZ wasnt open, it was a fully open vent all the way back then. And Kilauea Iki is the collapsed summit of the Aila’au shield. Up until about 1000 years ago the only place Kilauea did Pu’u O’o type eruptions was at the summit, as recently as the 1920s before this year.
The tilt and GPS are pretty level on average, so output is about the same as input. The eruption long term is continuous its just that last 1-2 km that is episodic. At some point the vent will become wide enough for convection and that is where fountaining declines and shield building begins. Pu’u O’o decided to do this by collapsing and erupting out its side. Mauna Ulu just got wider. Fagradalsfjall also got too wide for tall fountains although never stopped being episodic. There is some variability here. But it is continuous and predictable long term. And the flow field is growing rapidly in thickness especially the cones. Its growing even faster than I thought actually…
Lava also flowed fully into the east part of the 2018 caldera again, near the 2023 vents.
“Mengde magma som akkumuleres har vært mer under Svartsengi enn det var før utbruddet som startet 20. November” = The amount of magma accumulated unter Svartsengi is more than before the eruption on 20th November.
Does the longer time to wait (and be patient) mean, that the next episode is going to be larger? Maybe the episodes change towards single eruptions like the Grimsvötn eruptions, even when they remain on denser time frame.
Those fountains are so high because Pelee is happy about the piece that Jesper produced, and is dancing and waiting for part 2 and illuminating the candles on the cake in time.
Fun you enjoyed it.. and they does have much better weather than we does, in Scandinavia its freaking cloudy, humid and depressing all year around in northen europe so I think my mind is not working here for most of the year due to clouds and gloom
https://www.usgs.gov/volcanoes/kilauea/science/monitoring-data-kilauea
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG5zz9Sjw3E
Still eruption while deformation is going up now which is the first time this was seen since this started on christmas
if this is supply rate then Kilauea have evolved into a real monster volcano ( which it kind of already is )
Will be fun to see if the rising inflation can keep this vent open
Stopped as always but will re – erupt
The rate of uplift between episodes has beev very constant on average, some are a pretty straight line all the way, some start very fast but slow down a bit, like happened before E11. Inflation is very fast right now so probably will slow down a bit after a couple days and E12 will be in about a weeks time, 3-5 March.
The volume increase between January 2 and January 15 was 10 million m3, and between January 15 and February 7 was 15 million m3. So can probably round to about 1 million m3 a day high end, , and half that at the low end. But that is still between 0.18 and 0.36 km3/year supply rate. Im not sure about the DRE, HVO says the summit lava can be very vesicular but high fountains tend to make degassed lava flows, so the DRE might well be very close to the real volume especially for the higher fountain episodes of recent.
0.2 km3 a year seems a sensible estimate of supply rate in any case. And even if the DRE us lower its the bulk volume that fills the caldera so still important. If the vent becomes too wide to fountain and the gassy lava spills out directly it could build up a shield very fast. Its already built up high enough lava is leaking out at the far end and flowing DOWN onto the downdropped block and 2023 cones. Only 2 months.
I still think, right now it us more likely to go into one of the rift zones by the end of the year. But if it doesnt do that even with the vents at over 1 km elevation, then a full overflow of the caldera is a likely event, and if that does happen it is likely to be before 2030.
The last two episodes have aligned to an average eruption phase of ~12 hours. This reminds to Mauna Loa’s 1975 one-day eruption.
Since January we had the starting points of eruptions:
15, 22, 24, 27 January; 3, 11, 19, 25 February.
The average dormant phase is 5 to 7 days (estimated intuitively).
Mauna Loas eruptions are usually intense and brief, 1975 was just a bit weird that there wasnt a vent somewhere that was still open after the curtain of fire stage. All the most recent eruptions started with a huge curtain of fire up to 20 km long erupting full power along that entire length, but with most of it closing off within a few hours and only the propagating end of the dike still having active vents after a day. 2022 eruption was basically identical to 1975 eruption but a long lived vent did open further downrift, where in 1975 this didnt happen. A dike did go down the NERZ though, so maybe it should be considered more a failed NERZ eruption than a fully summit only eruption like 1940.
Probably the only similarity between these and the last episode at Kilauea, is both are lava eruptions in Hawaii that lasted a similar duration… Quite different really, probably isnt worth comparing the two. Mauna Loa has more in common with Sundhnjukur than it does with Kilauea right now.
The general trend is that episodes are getting more intense, but not necessarily actually bigger or more separated. So they have to be getting shorter. At the extreme end if this keeps going we might get fountains 500 meters high that only last a couple hours. Having 2 vents open might stop that nkw, I thought the south vent was dying but it was very strong last time, so it is probably deeply rooted and both are wide open. If they both go over 200 meters together at some point that probably would have been a 500 meter fountain if only one vent was active.
I only wanted to look at the duration of the eruptions. We still remember the 1975 eruption of Mauna Loa, but in 50 years will probably have forgotten a single episode of the current Kilauea eruption, although it has a similar duration.
It shows that each eruption of Mauna Loa is a special event, while on Kilauea it is every day life.
If Kilauea continues the rule of average dormant phases, next eruption will be on 2 to 4 March. HVO expects it “beween Tuesday March 4 and Sunday March 9”, so a bit later.
According to HVO’s constant redefinition of what constitutes a summit eruption, 1975 exclusively erupted from the summit (even though it was not defined as such at the time). I consider 2022 to be a mirror of 1984 (I think 1975 lasted about 26-28 hours). The SWRZ consistently does 20km unzips while the NERZ does start-stop tippytoes downrift.
I mean, its complicated. The 1975 vents were all in the summit defined area but the intrusion went further. If ut erupted on that section the vents would be in the same area as in 2022. 1984 went a lot further east.
So 1975 was a summit eruption but still involved a lot of the NERZ, unlike the eruptions in 1940 or 1949 which never went near that rift.
SWRZ eruptions properly seem to not involve Mokuaweoweo at all. They start east of the fissures that exit the caldera, and seem to start at the craters south of Mokuaweoweo. I have seen a lot of SWRZ eruptions do actually have a summit component listed but it never shows where, and if it was in the caldera or not.
Big Island News has published more details about Episode 11: https://bigislandnow.com/2025/02/26/brief-but-mighty-episode-11-of-kilauea-eruption-ends-after-nearly-13-hours-of-intense-activity/
“Large amounts of pumice, Peleʻs hair and lighweight reticulite were deposited on the west rim of Halemaʻumaʻu overnight Tuesday into Wednesday, blanketing the area. A few lightweight “ribbon” bombs up to about 1 to 2 feet were also found on top of the pumice.”
The eruption was strong enough to throw light deposits outside the caldera.
This is interesting. Very rare case of Bovine Papillomavirus in two giraffes in Kruger NP:
https://www.livescience.com/animals/land-mammals/see-heartbreaking-photos-of-bumpy-giraffe-in-south-africa-with-viral-disease-rarely-seen-in-these-tall-animals
Editing part two that will be the finale of this series: the nostalgia is terrfyingly strong for those days… 🙂 the photos ( that where nearly lost ) helps me to remeber whats now very faded memories
The nostalgia is simply…. insane! part two comming up in the weekend
I have noticed also how small our Earth really is the distance I drives to my partners family and relatives on the weekends, thats is 50 kilometers, thats a distance easly visible on a whole globe if the globe is quite large or if you draw a line in Google Earth. Indeed Hawaii Island itself is sligthly smaller than 1/100th of Earths whole diameter so Earth feels tiny now! when I was a small child Earth felt as large as a whole galaxy but now it feels as small as a large backyard, New York city area is roughly 1/1000 th of Earths diameter, this maybe only possible to feel so because we have fast tranportation today and the world is very connected compared whats been before. Still hunter gatheres in the stone age covered 100 s of kilometers in no time as well
I had the opposite impression when back in the lockdown I took to planning trips and said> When this sad chapter is finished let us drive down the South-American coast from Quito to Punta Arenas.
Great, everybody said, and we gave it into ggl maps. 8.000 km, 105 hours drive, also due, of course to some say poor streets. We dropped the plan and drove instead (on maps) from St. Petersburg to Vladivostock.
~ 10.000 km, 128 hours.
Your statement with Hawaii might be slightly wrong. The greatest diameter of Big Island is 150 km. That is twice the distance from Stockholm to Uppsala or 1/56 the distance from Quito to Punta Arenas, Chile. Or is it Argentina, you never know down there, the tail of South America.
Anyway, when planning s.th. it is jawdropping how big e.th. is.
With the hunter gatherers you might be right. It is certainly not accidental that people from East-Africa are often great sprinters. Accordingly the Cheetah became the fastest cat. Or the other way around.
Cheetah probably isnt why we run long distances. Still no hope of outrunning one but cheetahs also havent attacked people in the wild as far as I am aware, unlike other big cats they arent stronger than you and would only be able to get you with a throat bite, meaning a direct confrontation. And we can grapple, gazelles cant, so its an unfamiliar defence. I dont think cheetahs mess with baboons either, and neither do leopards in the day.
The part above the sea is 150 kilometers wide that still makes it the worlds largest oceanic shield complex if you measure from seafloor 5700 m down from tip of the puna ridge to the tip of Mahukona you then gets 275 km wide which makes Etna seem like a complete aftertought compared to that volume. The immense volumes of seawater impresses me too! local hawaiian sea is freaking as deep as more than half the altitude of a 747 crusing altitude, if kilimanjaro was placed there it woud only be a small islet with only the uppermost parts of kibo poking out of the pacific. To even reach the surface a Hawaiian shield needs to grow into a behemoth and most continental volcanoes on land woud not surface in the pacifc abyssal plain
Hawaii is the Olympus Mons of Earth. Both planets have some kind of volcanic bellybutton. Does also Venus have a main planetary volcanic system like this?
One difference between Hawaii and Olympus Mons is, that Hawaii has plate movement, while Olympus Mons sits on static crust. If we imagine Hawaii without plate movement, the accumulation of all the ancient seabergs and islands from Big Island to Kamtchatka would be unbelievable huge.
Based on size Iceland is probably more like the Olympus Mons of Earth. They are pretty close actually. Only problem is Olympus Mons is probably made of layered lava flows, while the majority of Iceland is intrusive rocks and sediment eroded by the ice, with relatively thin lava cover. And not 1 volcano.
I do wonder what Hawaii would be like if it was in a place with a slower plate. Hawaii moves 10 cm a year, but the Atlantic plates move 2.5 cm a year. So if Hawaii was in the Atlantic, then possibly instead of Kauai and Oahu being hundreds of km from the plume their volume would still be closer than 100 km. The Big Island is 200,000 km3, Maui Nui maybe 250,000. Oahu might have been close to 150,000 km3 at its peak too. Kauai might be 150,000 km3 too, all rough guesses. But add all that together and it is 750,000 km3, and probably just a few huge or even one single enormous volcano.
On a stationary plate, the Hawaii hotspot would probably have built a 10km high mountain, higher than Mount Everest. But it would be hard for the Earthcrust and mantle to bear this mass. The imaginary island would sink down a lot. The shape of such an island would probably be a flat shield plateau on top that is surrounded by a tall steep escarpment. But it’s also possible that at this height the island would have a glacier like Vatnajökull and would do phreatomagmatic eruptions. You’d need an oxygen flask to visit the volcano.
Are there former Hawaiian seabergs that were subducted in the Kamtchatka trench?
It already is almost 10 km tall.
Yes there are old seamounts near Kamchatka. Meiji and Detroit seamounts, of which the Detroit seamount actually did erupt for about 5 million years and ended up as big as the modern islands despite lower output of the plume then. I can imagine it as a lost world of mostly terrestrial and maybe even flightless pterosaurs and birds lived on it, totally lost to time.
Hawaii itself though might be more likely to subduct under Japan though, assuming the northward movement of Australia doesnt bring it up into the Pacific coast of Asia. Depends how the Pacific plate moves in 60 million years.
I meant 10km above sea level. I don’t know whether the pacific ocean plate can bear a volcanic shield like this. A continental plate probably would be able, if f.e.
a stationary Hawaii shield was built in Sibiria or in the Sahara desert.
I also guess Hawaii woud have no dry side at all if it was on the Equator, but it also depends sea surface temperatures, wind currents and other factors, and if Earth spunn in the reverse the dry side woud be at Hilo and Kilauea instead at the Kona side, in the Atlantic it woud be a gigantic island a tropical Iceland without the ridge.
I miss Hawaii … so pleasant and warm and fun… everything here is cold and grey and dead, and thats not going away unless cO2 rises to perhaps 1500ppm
The Weekly Report of GVP mentions increasing unrest at Lascar (Chile) volcano. What can this volcano do?
The Geological summary says that “Frequent small-to-moderate explosive eruptions have been recorded since the mid-19th century, along with periodic larger eruptions that produced ashfall hundreds of kilometers away. The largest historical eruption took place in 1993, producing pyroclastic flows to 8.5 km NW of the summit and ashfall in Buenos Aires.” https://volcano.si.edu/volcano.cfm?vn=355100
NOAA fires 800 employees. If USGS as a federal agency also has to do it, it will worsen the ability to monitor and manage volcanoes: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/27/politics/noaa-federal-workers-firings/index.html
Weather too. If data is only available to agencies approved by the administration, you’d need a remarkable level of confidence they wouldn’t have an agenda to be disseminating BS. My confidence is zero – BS alarm has been ringing loud, What a time to be alive – to witness the glory and might of pure idiocracy.
This is the notice on https://earth.nullschool.net/
Weather and climate data shown on this website and countless others are at risk.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is the U.S. agency responsible for global weather forecasting, hurricane prediction, ocean observation, and many other services vital to public safety. Its satellites, supercomputers, and research teams provide essential data that help us understand our planet and protect lives.
On February 27, the new U.S. administration initiated mass firings at NOAA. These actions are unethical and deeply disruptive to the talented scientists and engineers who dedicate themselves to the public good. The firings, along with expected budget cuts, have serious implications for the availability and quality of weather forecasts produced by the United States. They must be reversed immediately.
Much of the data on this website is downloaded directly from NOAA’s servers. In this environment of uncertainty, access could be disrupted at any time. While I’ll strive to keep all features on this website functional and switch to alternative data sources if necessary, some datasets have no substitute if they go offline.
If this concerns you, speak up. Share on social media. And if you’re in the U.S., contact your representatives.
– Cameron
It looks like a war on science, but no one can change the scientific laws (f.e. Newton’s laws) of the world. They can ignore scientific facts, but the world will react as it does regularly.
This also applies to economics: Tariffs and other trade barriers increase inflation. Trump may ignore this fact, but he can’t avoid the bad consequences (f.e. more inflation) of wrong decisions. The world with its relations and causal correlations doesn’t change.
I’ve downloaded NOAA data before, including climate data and bathymetry, and it’s great. Bathymetry has been very helpful in understanding submarine volcanism, and I’ve only found such data in the NOAA. It’s sad to see such valuable knowledge in risk of being destroyed by a person who should know better the value of science.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiPZyOuBgHY
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x587gml
The most beautyful animation on the entire youtube and internet: here in higher resolution a simulation showing a Hadean Era sized protoplanetary impact on todays Earth ( what woud happen if Pallas hit Earth?) souch nice details when the dwarf planet hits the pacific ocean! clouds are blown away, shockwaves are rendered, hot rock vapor and ejecta are rendered and the 100 kilometers tall tsunami around the ejecta curtains base is also rendered in good detail. These are forces and kinetic energies thats beyond most persons capacity to even imagine, the favorite here is when the planetesimal toutches the pacific ocean and the crust is ripped up and vaporized, its magnificent Earths oceans, crust and atmosphere is just a thin skinn in comparison to an impact as severe as this. This is a jesperian scale event 🙂 but it means also Im asking for my own vaporization, the animators really did a fantastic job here with physics getting it nearly 100% accurate, but the rock vapor itself woud just be blindingly white and the ejecta curtains kinetic energy woud destroy us before the rock vapor arrives…but otherwise than that its a fantastic animation and is world famous on internet since twenty years now. I hopes this is remade soon with better CGI and computers that we haves today
They are really the most magnificent forces that there are at least on planets: planetary accretion the energy is simply magnificent and its the only animation to try to show that what woud happen if a dwarf planet hit Earth today, Earth is 1000 s of Pallas masses so this likey happened many 100 s of times during the early hadean even if smaller impacts where most common during earths formation, Earth also likey swallowed a few tens of moon sized objects too
Insane forces and big too: when Pallas impacts the pacific ocean the top of the dwarf planet is way up in space at higher than ISS altitudes, its base starts to shine like a 1000 s suns while its top is still cold for some many seconds, hard to picture in the head
Part two tomorrow
Looks like they disconnected most of the Raspberry seismographs in the region where the Sundhnukur fissures are, except one (which is the one at Grindavik).
https://dataview.raspberryshake.org/#/AM/R135F/00/EHZ?streaming=on
Here if anyone interested.
When will part 2 of my article be posted?
Plot of all the episodes up to 10 from the start. Between December 23 and January 2 there was about 50 microrad of deflation and only 13 microrad of inflation. In that time 15 million m3 of lava erupted. The average was 1.36 million m3 a day. But only 26% of that was supply rate, or 0.33 million m3/day.
January 2 to February 7 saw 30 microrads of inflation and 37 microrad of deflation. So much closer to equilibrium, only 19% difference. That interval had 25 million m3 of lava erupt, an average of 0.76 million m3 a day, or 0.61 million m3 a day on supply rate alone. If I had to guess the older number might be DRE, and the newer number is bulk lava volume now pressure is largely equal.
Adding the total deflation number gives 87 microrad, to erupt 40 million m3. So about 2 microrad for a million m3. Its been a bit over 2 days and at 2 microrad up already, so that 0.61 million m3 a day number seems to hold up pretty well.
So there we go, based on actual eruption rate and deformation, not just speculation on timing and GPS data, the supply of magma to Kilauea right now as we speak is about 600,000 m3/day, or 0.22 km3 of lava a year.
Puts any of the uncertainty to bed now, finally after 7 years 🙂
The high supply resembles the development in early 19th century. It will probably continue until the summit is satisfied.
Since Episode 4 the eruption changed to a denser frequency of episodes with short dormant periods and short eruptions. 2025 we can distinguish between major and minor episodes:
Major episodes: 4, 8, 9, 11
Minor episodes: 5, 6, 7, 10
The tilt during last month shows the difference between major (E11) and minor (E10) episodes in deformation:
Im not sure it is very clear what makes the two volcanoes alternate with each other. Im also not sure if that has ever taken Hualalai and Kama’ehuakanaloa into account either, especially the latter should be just as connected to the source and Hualalai is still a pretty active volcano by world standards.
I used to think it had something to do with major eruptions, as Mauna Loa slowed down immediately after 1950, and Kilauea appears to have swapped after 1840. But actually Kilauea didnt really swap fast in 1840, and was at times was quite active. And Mauna Loa hasnt erupted much after 1950 but two of those eruptions were among the biggest of its historical set.
And of course, if that logic was sound, Kilauea should have taken over after 1868, and Mauna Loa the last few years. So I dont really think there is a truely reliable indicator of a swap, other than deformation if it has already progressed. But right now Mauna Loa is weakly inflating while Kilauea is more active than before 2018, it seems not likely to change particularly soon or for any specific reason.
Sylingarfell Surdur (South) webcam fails to work, but the Nordur (North) webcam works and shows snow landscape that allows to discover geothermal hotspots in the lava field:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUZTszmpAJE
The snow on the lava field also shows, how well lava isolates heat below. The lava between the webcam and the crater row is relatively new, but doesn’t melt snow above.