Kaluapele

On the Island of Hawaiʻi, Kaluapele (the pit of pele or Pele) crowns the summit region of the volcano Kīlauea.

04 January 2021

Monday, January 4, 2021. OOPs! Auē, Fine tuning of miscellanea

 Weʻll get to that shortly, but first:


Mahina o Hoku rising last week, over sunset shadow cast by Maunakea.  Mākanaka is the puʻu nui, foreground right.  Mahalo piha, hf, for sharing!


Above, on the glorious morning of October 14 last, I captured this.  Flat-topped Mākanaka is straight up from Bayshore Tower, the big white vertical box.

Now.  About that OOPS!  Sharp, astronomically-inclined eyes of hf caught this one.  I sometimes tell people:  Iʻm a land guy.  Plants, rocks, like that.  I donʻt know much about ocean people, or about the cosmos, but am always happy to learn.  

Following is a sequence of photos with explanatory text.  Bear with me.  I posted the one immediately below on January 2, with a comment about the "headlights" at Kīlauea Overlook.  But...no was!!!


TryLook an image from December 28 I annotated and posted:


Same camera, same angle!  Babooze!  I neva notice no can see Kīlauea Overlook!  The panoramic curve wen chrow me off...

Then...from hf:  Look the "headlights"...





Manuel!  Was Da Moon coming up!!!  Not da headlight!  Ai-yah!!!

I apologize...  And the dim lights at horizon left are likely at Volcano House.  Or maybe at Wahinekapu.  I think.  But.  Get only one moon.  How come get two lights?  Iʻm told that that has to do with refraction in the atmosphere and reflection in the lenses of the camera, and as Mahina rises higher, the ghost image and the actual image of Mahina nearly resolve.  Iʻm told that gotta point the camera straight at the bright Mahina light to eliminate ghosts.

And another miss...sharp-eyed friend fat pointed this out, cropped from the magnificent sunrise photo I posted yesterday.  Kamapuaʻa visiting Pelehonuamea:


Kama, the eight-eyed puaʻa, mouth agape, still pines for Pele apparently...

Also from yesterday, a view through a laser viewfinder rangefinder of the orangeyellow vent on the floor by HVOʻs KLynn:


A dome fountain on the floor at the edge of lokopele.  Pointy complex are the West Vents.  To the right of the tip of the point and the blueish fume, is a fine-grained blanket of cinder and other tephra.  The dome fountain is perhaps a drowned vent.  Kinda like holding a hosepipe vertically with moderate flow. The water gurgles out.  And of course the concentric shinybright silver of just-crusted pele on the floor.  A he nani maoli nō... 

And about the bright star appearing on the Maunaloa Strip Road webcam... 


See the white dot maybe half way down, two-thirds to the right?  Itʻs Kealiʻiokonaikalewa (Ke-aliʻi-o-Kona-i-ka-lewa) a.k.a. Canopus...mahalo again to hf!

And then, yesterday I included a photo of the pāhoehoe pele of September 1982?  TryLook...

Below is a closeup of portion of the image...I hope you can make it out.  If not, find the original in HVO Photos and Video for 1/2/21...


TryLook good in the center of the image just above, and parallel to, the September 1982 "bath tub ring".
See the humps bumps?  The irregular surface?


In 1942, during WWII, the Hawaiian Department ordered bulldozing that area of the caldera floor to prevent planes from landing.  Workers very tidily made a series of humps.  
You can barely, fuzzily, see them on the [founder "scars" or textures] Google Earth image I posted yesterday, at the bottom, just to the left of "Image © 2020 Maxar Technologies".

Above, the "Kīlauea Landing Field", unpaved.  The curvy line to the left is/was Crater Rim Drive.  Big hump on horizon is Kānenuiohamo, and smaller, darker irregular hump to its right is Puʻuhuluhulu.
me ka mahalo piha iā jmn!!!

And...Yes, as far as the eruption, oia mau nō...Pele continues her work... Kinda easy to see the encircling ledge, built up during risings and fallings of loko pele.


Below, taken on January 1, 2021:


From the West Vent complex, those at least two bright spots at the base of the fume cloud, pele travels a short distance down a crusted over slope, and appears in the lake, near the edge.


The west vent in Halema‘uma‘u crater continues to erupt at Kīlauea’s summit. These telephoto images from January 1 (left) and January 2 (right) compare the lava lake surface below the west vent. The west vent is supplying lava to the lake through a crusted over channel, which enters just below the lake surface.  As the lava enters the lake, it produces localized upwelling at the surface. By January 2 there appears to be an increase in eruptive vigor where a small dome-like fountain is breaking through the surface crust. USGS photos by M. Patrick.

On the other side of our fair isle, just offshore at Kahuwai Bay, we visit Waiakāne (Water of Kāne)...
This photo from May 2009, with SUPers for scale at the top.  Waiakāne is a wahipana, a noted place of Kekahawaiʻole, where copious amounts of fresh water debouches into the sea via a small lava tube, maybe 2 feet in diameter.  The circular surface roil (middle right) is reminiscent of Pelehonuamea roiling the surface of her lake.


At 730 this morning, the Summit Tilt continues to decline.
Hilo is calling...an early erranding to town, so no Update yet.

Be well, and Wear Your Mask, and...

as always, with aloha,

BobbyC
maniniowali@gmail.com



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