The big island of Hawaii
| As we approached our port of Hilo on the big island, we could see the smoking top of Kilauea, the earth's most active volcano erupting continuously since 1983 adding 544 acres to the southeastern shore. The viscous lava flows 6 miles then creates clouds of sulfuric acid and steam when it hits the ocean. | |
| One tourist died in 1993 when a half-acre slab of cooled lava he was standing on broke and dropped into the ocean. |  |
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The Pacific Plate is moving NW about 4"/year. Loihi, a submarine volcano will someday break the surface and become the newest Hawaiian island. |
| The notion of seeing flowing lava peaked my interest so I joined a driving/hiking tour of Kilauea. This is the old main crater at about 4000'. Currently lava is flowing not from here, but from a side vent. |  |
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| I am standing on macadam where the lava flowed over the road on its way to the sea. From this point we hiked about a mile directly over the still warm recent flow to find the fresh stuff. |  |
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This looks pretty fresh to me. |
Wow, when you poke a stick into it, the stick instantly bursts into flame. Imagine
that.
The radiant heat was so great that I could not stand here for more than a moment.
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Lava at this temperature flows like honey but very quickly froms a hard crust. The tricky part is that molten lava may still be flowing under the crust. While walking away, I looked down a crack that I had just stepped over and saw red! |
| While I was playing with the lava, Carol took a taxi around Hilo and saw wonderful 420' Akaka Falls. |  |