Kīlauea Update, June 6, 2018, morning...Unfathomable

unfathomable

pele wrought alterations

new realities

So one time I was in Waipiʻo at a SlowFood Hawaiʻi gathering at the Mock Chew place.  They had made an imu, and I was ono for that crispy skin that gets stuck to the chicken wire.  I stood patiently not too far away and watched them uncover the imu, take off the hāliʻi, and reach down to lift out the wire basket with the pig inside.  Drooling with anticipation.  I watched intently as they opened the wire and began to take out the cooked pig.  And then.  Though I has seen the pig, and knew that there was a pig in there, it dawned on me that they had kaluaed pork butts.  There was no pig.  There was no crispy smokyono skin.  Talk about sad...

We see what we want to see.  We see what we expect to see.  We arenʻt always as attentive as we should, or hope to, be.

be outside...pay attention      noho i waho...a maliu

And so, when presented with a picture of the newly remodeled home of Pelehonuamea at Halemaʻumaʻu, we go..."Wow...  What is that?  Where IS that?"

Above, from the USGS HVO website:  https://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/cams/   Look under "Photos & Video".

How can???  The view is looking west toward Mauna Loa, with the green pastures of Kapāpala Ranch at the top.  Note the concentric cracks all the way around.  One running  through the Halemaʻumaʻu Parking Lot, those three curved lines at the left.  The black April 1982 spatter rampart runs diagonally down on the right (Shout out to 1982 UCSantaCruz gang).  The whitish Jaggar Museum and HVO buildings are perched on the rim near Uēkahuna at the top right edge.
Breathtaking.  New pali, multi-level, dusted in pale grey lehu.  Seems like plenny people paint their rooms grey these days...
And lest we be content with this iteration of her work, Pele continues.  We shouldnʻt be surprised if this, too, changes.

If you desire, watch the LiveStream of Halemaʻumaʻu from a cam in the tower at HVO:

Halemaʻumaʻu aLive Cam

Tilt at the summit, as recorded in the UWEkahuna vault seems to show a very slight easing of subsidence starting at 6p yesterday.  But what do I know...

We had a real ʻōlaʻi up here yesterday at 726p, a M2.7 centered near Kīlauea iki.  Good little jolt, unlike those slow ʻami exploquakes.

And the ʻōlaʻi at the Lower East Rift Zone (LERZ) are quite quite modest in number.  Two during the last day:

 The pre-dawn brightness of Fissure 8 and her river...

Just after sunrise, a bit better context below.  The fountain seems to be waning just a little, and USGS says that fissures uprift may be reawakening.  Again, go read Macdonald 1955 for an idea of whatʻs possible.  We tend to get complacent, and after a week of the same old same old, we forget that the situation can and will change.  Sometimes too fast for us to get our bearings.

Courtesy of GoogleEarth, Kapoho Beach Lots before...1960 flow to right:

and Vacationland Hawaiʻi, before...1955 flow to left:

Match the below with the image just above.  The houses aflame below are the blue-roofed ones at lower left above.

On the Vacationland Hawaiʻi Community Association website is a timely, evocative, lovely piece written about the 1959 and 1960 eruptions.  Please take the time to read it.  Thanks, Papa.  Tis an excellent reminder that history has a way of repeating (and repeating) itself:

http://vhca.info/docs/1959.pdf

And with that, Iʻm taking a few days off to relax on more stable (hopefully) ground.

As below... maybe go beach, make ʻili hau, gather pua kou, and kui lei.  And yes, those are bananas at the beach...we werenʻt fishing.

Weʻll catch up early next week sometime, then.

As always, with aloha for our ʻāina aloha,

BobbyC