Greasing up the bearings:
Today marks the 60th Anniversary of the start of the eruption at Kīlauea Iki crater in 1959. Pic below is from a few days ago, taken from the Kilauea Iki Overlook. The same place I stood with my family when we watched the spectacle. The vent at the base of Puʻupuaʻi is shadowed, vegetation partially obscures views today, and the scene is oft decorated by that hovering cloud, the māhu hoʻokino (vapors that take shape: kr) created when hot vapors rise from the Lua, cool, and condense. Yup. Itʻs a favorite.
Pelehonuamea began her work by opening a line of fissures on the Kaʻū-side wall of the crater. Streams cascaded to the floor and began creating a lava lake that ended up being 400 feet deep. Following three pics are from USGS HVO... The bright dots on the floor are burning trees.
In daylight, the view is perhaps not as compelling, but I think perspective is a bit better. Keep in mind that the lava lake eventually rose to the base of the primary fountain seen below.
And then, as recently, visitors visited and were enthralled. All the black in the eruption cloud is tephra, carried upward and downwind. Tephra, again, is any volcanic product that falls out of a lava fountain. Cinder, Peleʻs hair, Peleʻs tears, reticulite, all are tephra. HK has shared a story of folks on Oʻahu going to the beach to gather cinder, for their gardens and potted orchids, that had made its way there via wind and wave. It boggles the mind.
The pic above shows a still-growing Puʻupuaʻi (gushing hill), the hump to the right of the fountain. The name was chosen as the result of a newspaper contest, though technically the hill never gushed. The luaʻi pele (fountain) gushed and the puʻu was heaped.
Below are a couple of video clips. The first includes both the 1959 Kīlauea Iki and 1960 Kapoho eruptions. The second, by Fred Rackle, are clips of his films of Kīlauea Iki.
US Dept of the Interior: Eruption of Kīlauea, 1959-1960
Fred Rackleʻs Kīlauea Iki film clips
Rackleʻs are from the folks at CSAV (Center for the Study of Active Volcanoes) at UH Hilo. Lucky for us we get to view both these treasures in all their historic quirkiness.
Grampa Rapozo drove us in his navy blue Pontiac (I think) from Honokaʻa. Who knows how long that took, but Iʻll guess it was an all-day affair. Being 8 then, my memories, are at best, spotty. I remember a lot of traffic in Volcano. I remember not having a lot of time to watch, listen to the roars, and feel the heat. But, I remember...
And the LIFE Magazine cover below is somewhere in a box or file cabinet. I copied it for an art class in intermediate school, though where the watercolor ended up is anyoneʻs guess.
And I remember too, seeing the glow from our ma uka kitchen window in Honokaʻa. The measured distance is about 47 miles, over the shoulder of Maunakea. I remember...
And sixty years later, Iʻm still watching and admiring. This morning a friend and I decided to go to Kaluapele, to our favorite viewpoints on the rim across from Keanakākoʻi. We left the Devastation Trail parking lot at 545a, walking down the moonlit road, and...
Two others were out there too, visitors from, I believe, Bostonish. Just the four of us in the whole world, there. That dark patch on the far rim is the shadow of our cloudfriend.
After the sunrise light became daylight, jw and I stayed for a photo session, spending an hour or more portraiting a single roadside ʻōhiʻa tree. It was a marvel: tight lehua buds, full bloom pua, young seed pods with only lihilihi wahine hanging on, tight greenish fat seed pods, pods just opened with blond seeds sticking out, empty pods with shiny tan interiors, year-old dark brown pods fading into oblivion, galled leaves...It was a best time. Lucky attentive us...
And on the way out, a stop to again admire that fat hoverer. Because it morphs so quickly, I never tire of watching and paying attention. The lei of cloud on Maunaloa are forming at the atmospheric inversion, which, I confess, I still donʻt understand. Something about temperatures and physics and...Iʻll give Google another go and will add that to the update list.
TryLook again at the last three pics above, paying attention to the quality of the lighting. So very different, it amazes that they were all taken this morning...
Ahhhhh....
As always, with aloha,
BobbyC
maniniowali@gmail.com
My dad and two of his friends snuck into the park to watch Kīlauea Iki in 1959. They hiked through forest in twilight, and found themselves a vantage point to hide in. He always talks about how the heat reflecting up to them from the lava lake was almost unbearable on their fronts, and their backs were freezing from the wind and rain. But he remembers....
ReplyDeleteNine years ago now, myself, my niece and my father hiked down into the crater. It was a bucket list item for my dad, who had always wanted to go and never found the time. I will always remember that trip, his awe, his happiness, and all of the stories he told of watching that momentous eruptive cycle.