Kīlauea Update, Tuesday, July 3, 2018, "A Stupefaction On Account Of Wonder"

Itʻs so quiet.  Ears ring in the stillness.  Do you know that sensation?  In the undistracted quiet, my mind wanders.  Thereʻs little pre-planning when I write these things.  I have no grand scheme or outline.  Someone says something, I start thinking there and here, and off I go.  This is becoming A Kākou Thing.  Something in which all (or at least many) participate when they are so inclined.  A note, a phrase, a word, a link to a cool website, all can provoke and inspire.  Today, mahalo especially to mahina and pua j.

In 1865, the Reverend Lorrin Andrews published

A Dictionary

of the

Hawaiian Language

to which is appended an

English-Hawaiian Vocabulary

and a

Chronological Table of Remarkable Events

Andrews Dictionary

When the page opens at the link above, at the upper right, you can click English text by the green arrow.  Then, under Customize Search, use the drop down arrow to select "Andrews/Parker/Hwn Dict".  Have fun.

Andrews arrived in the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi in 1828 as part of the "Third Company" of missionaries appointed by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.  He and his wife were assigned to the station at Lahaina, Maui.  (This from the Front Matter of the 2003 Island Heritage edition).

I love researching old stuff. And I love the Andrews Dictionary because it provides insight to that important period of the history of Hawaiʻi nei.  Unless and until weʻre able to allow our minds to try to appreciate and gain some understanding of the olden days, we really canʻt make sense of what all happened back then.  Looking back through 21st century Transitions Lenses with Non-Glare Coatings will skew our perceptions.  Try think like them and maybe we can try to understand them.  Try.

So in his Dictionary, Andrews wrote:

PU-I-WA
s. Amazement; a surprise; a stupefaction on account of wonder; a starting from fright; sudden excitement.

and then Pukui and Elbert wrote:

pū.ʻiwa
nvs. Startled, surprised, astonished, aghast, frightened; surprise, amazement, fright. hoʻo.pū.ʻiwa To startle, astonish, etc.

Pūʻiwa.  What an appropriate word for these times, especially at  Kaluapele, the caldera.

An animation from our friends at HVO and their Photos & Video page:

Kaluapele: That sinking feeling

A scientist there said something to the effect:  If it looks like the entire caldera floor is sinking, itʻs because the entire caldera floor is sinking.

Something close to 100 feet in three weeks or so.  And thatʻs just part of the floor.  The main floor, as in the video.  NOT Halemaʻumaʻu.  The floor of that is maybe 1,300 feet lower than it was a couple months ago.

And then we see

because of the 11,547 Earthquakes in the view below during the past month.

Is it any wonder that we are pūʻiwa?  Stupefied because of wonder?  Of course not.

This morning though, a similar, but zoomed-out-a-bit view is like this:

MUCH more reasonable.  Of course these are only the last 20 as of 544a today.  But note, as we did yesterday, that the ʻōlaʻi are scattered over the sinking floor of Kaluapele.  Even, as yesterday, the ʻōlaʻi ʻōniu pele (the exploquake) is "out there", itʻs actually, I think, pretty close to the edge of the newly enlarged Halemaʻumaʻu.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center

at the Summit of Kīlauea, but No Tsunami Generated

gives us this

listing of our exploquakes at the times the messages were issued following the exploquakes.  Note that the times are UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) which is the same as GMT (Greenwich Mean Time).  In Greenwich, England.  At Zero Degrees Longitude.  To get HST (Hawaiʻi Standard Time), subtract 10 hours.

Focus, Robert...

TERMINOLOGY

OK...Those explosions, collapse/explosions, M5.3 no-tsunami-generated earthquakes, exploquakes, ʻōlaʻi ʻōniu pele...what?????

Try read this Volcano Watch, courtesy of HVO:

HVO Volcano Watch 062818 Collapse/Explosions

Yes, they use the terms "earthquake" and "explosion".  But.  Those of us up here who feel the collapse/explosions (and the scientists) know that they are different.  They behave and feel different.  They arenʻt as strong as the magnitude says they should be.  At the end, theyʻre squishy.  Like being on a wallowing sailboat.  And theyʻre different, I and others believe, because theyʻre generated by a mechanism different than "regular" earthquakes.  Halemaʻumaʻu is collapsing in on itself.  The conduit above the magma reservoir gets plugged.  Gases build pressure.  Pressure is released during a silent "explosion", during which, these days, rockdust is wafted almost lazily into the air.  No ka-BOOM with rocks the size of small trucks, cows, or refrigerators flying through the air.  [Remember???  No thanks to social "media"]

So I started calling them exploquakes.  Then I thought...Hawaiian...we need something in Hawaiian.  Having been a student of hula, I consulted kumu and we came up with (and NOTE: classification and Hawaiian nomenclature is still a work in progress), for now, ʻōlaʻi ʻōniu pele.  Earthquake figure-eighting-of-hips caused by pele.  Thought full discussions continue.  Itʻs all, as we witness daily, a process.

From HVO KEcam, June 25, 2018, 1155a, Maunaulu on horizon, edge of Halemaʻumaʻu at right

Same camera, today, July 3, 2018, 914a, eight (EIGHT) days later.  For some idea of scale, the pali on the far side of the caldera floor is 2 miles from the camera in the HVO tower.

Is it any wonder, at all, that we are pūʻiwa???  Is it any wonder...  mahalo piha, pj...

And yes, at Keahialaka, Pelehonuamea continues to create.  

Below is a USGS aerial of the pre-dawn overflow I showed you yesterday.  Green PGV (Puna Geothermal Venture) machinery at top.  Fresh pele has a silvery sheen because a thin glassy reflective surface forms as it "freezes" in the air, weathering in days to grey then dark greyblack.

And finally, headed up The Mountain, thanks to mahina:

Maunakea Cloudcam

Good?  

I know...I keep saying Iʻm gonna cut back frequency of writing, but da potagee get plenny fo say...sometimes.  

As always, with aloha,

BobbyC
maniniowali@gmail.com