Wednesday, February 24, 2021 Under a blanket (of cloud fog rain)

 Itʻs been a time.  Chill and wet, and not just here; the Lua too.  Though we do have moments of dazzling sun, clouds return quickly.  Letʻs cruise instruments and webcams:

TILT:  Deflation - Inflation Events continue, as is apparently the norm.  Again, the long range view:

I think that without spectacularly steep prolonged D or I, itʻs oia mau nō...up down up.

Our ōlaʻi are...interesting.  Below, as of 3p or so today.  Without the "eye" graphic, one could wonder:  Where is Kīlauea?  Eerily quiet up here.  The SW Rift by Pāhala is doing whatever its thing is, with quite a few deep ōlaʻi, as theyʻve been for months (years?) now.  And interesting to see Maunaloa with more than Kīlauea, though in the scheme of things, whoʻs to say whatʻs "Normal"?

So we donʻt become complacent, or ignore/overlook the obvious, hereʻs the most recent Maunaloa UPDATE:

I can only hope and pray that The Powers That Be have Plan(s) for WHEN Maunaloa erupts again.  Theyʻve done poorly planning, responding, and communicating with The Public about all manner of Recent Events.  Letʻs say that Iʻm not too optimistic...  

The Kīlauea UPDATE for today:

So.  Weʻre down to 800 tonnes/day of sulphur dioxide.  Was 30,000 tonnes/day on December 23, 2020, a few days after Pele started her recent works on December 20.  The amount of SO2 is generally tied to eruptive flux (volume).  Sulphur dioxide degases (escapes) from molten pele.  The more gas the more pele.  

Combine that with seeming laziness of lava output, and of the papa of the loko ahi (surface of molten lake)...That may account for the accumulation of clots, or islets, or raftlets, or moku liʻiliʻi on the western surface near the vent.  Poor circulation, just like in us, clots may form.

Different angle, but the moku liʻiliʻi are visible.

Last 24hrs of F1 (west vent) cam

Kinda fun to watch individual islets and see whether or not they move.  And whether or not they grow.

And kinda fun too, to read of the apparent to-do of a "musical conch" in France.

The Upper Paleolithic was 12,000 to 50,000 years ago.

Here in Hawaiʻi, and on Pacific islands, people have used shell trumpets (pū) for a very long time.  I donʻt know that they were "musical instruments" as such.  In my limited experiences, pū make really good Alert!  Hūi You Folks! sounds.  And talented folks can change the pitch of the sound emanating by pursing or unpursing their lips.  And by plugging or unplugging the aperture with handfist.

Two species (both generically "pū") are most commonly used here.  Tritonʻs trumpet (Charonia tritonis):

wikipedia

And here is the legendary Kihapū, who is at home in the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum.  Itʻs a Helmet Shell (Cassis cornuta):

kaiana.blogspot.com

Go Google "kihapu" and/or "puapualenalena".  Fun story for adults and keiki.

By Didier Descouens - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6237728

And, before too much more time elapses and I forget...classmate eab reminded me that hōlei, the little fragrant pua pictured at Kīpukappuaulu, is also the name of a song some hula to.  Favorite version by Dennis Pavao:

"Hōlei" by Dennis Pavao

From the P/E Dictionary:

hō.lei 

1. n. A small native tree (Ochrosia compta) related to the hao (Rauvolfia) and closely resembling it, but the leaves thicker, the yellow flowers fragrant, and the twinned fruits yellow and much larger. Formerly, bark and roots yielded a yellow dye for tapa. (Neal 691.)

2. nvt. Tapa dyed with hōlei; to dye thus.

3. n. An introduced yellow dotted cloth.

4. n. A variety of sweet potato.

And we know Hōlei too as a pali on the south flank of Kīlauea.  If youʻve ever driven to the coast on Chain of Craters Road (the road can barely be seen about a third of the way up the mosaic of dark flows center), youʻve experienced Hōlei.

wikimedia

I took this of Hōlei late last year from the parking area at the end of the road:

And below, I annotated PALI names.  The person standing on the precipice of Hōlei is on a Maunaulu flow.

flickr:  Lismadom:  July 10, 2015

And a different view of various PALI (in CAPS) merging from one to another.

Kīlauea is pretty big, and still very active.  Itʻs plumbing system and geometry of rift zones and summit contributes to an unstable south flank.  Collapses and sags result (earthquakes big and small) and over time the stepped terrace faces of pali (fault scarps) grow.

So.  Iʻll be away from my desk for a few days.  Hope to return to write on Sunday the 28th.  

Till then, as always, with aloha,

BobbyC

maniniowali@gmail.com

Monday, February 22, 2021 Observing Observations

 Itʻs been a rainy few days up here, with Kaluapele socked in some of the time, but we go out anyway.  Lucky for us HVO webcams on the rim of Kaluapele provide views into Halemaʻumaʻu, and thermal cams "see", even through hot rainsteam.

The UPDATE for today was early:

The Deflationary trend mentioned above, that downward slope at the far right of the graph:

Above, this morning.  Note the continued, albeit slow, growth of moku liʻi (or liʻiliʻi, if you prefer).  Four are strung out on the papa, the biggest very near the inlet being fed by the west vent, that glowing dot on the slope above the loko ahi.  The second in the line perhaps is new?  It doesnʻt appear in the image below.

Below, yesterday.  Was HOT.  Intermittent heavy showers cause intense steaming, thus the purpling of the background, and general image fuzziness.

On the February 16 helicopter overflight, at approximately 9:20 a.m. HST, thermal imagery was collected of the ongoing eruption within Halema‘uma‘u crater, at the summit of Kīlauea Volcano. This annotated thermal image shows the western active lava surface is limited to an area on the north, south, and west sides of the largest island. Lava continues to enter the lava lake from the west vent through an inlet at the base of the spatter cone. The warm ring around the edge of the lake is caused by ooze-outs as the lake surface continues to rise. The temperature scale is in degrees Celsius. USGS thermal image taken by B. Carr.

Kinda cool (!) that arc of orangepurple on the right-hand side of the papa, the crust of the loko ahi.  The entire crust, the moku nui and smaller islets embedded in it, floats on the molten lake.  So as the papa rises, thereʻs leakage at the edges.  Make a puka in a molten chocolate cake...deliciousness oozes.  Kinda the same thing.  Rock is an efficient insulator and so doesnʻt conduct heat well.  So even though the loko is molten, the eastern half of the crust is considerably cooler.  The Celsius scale on the right:  617.7dC = 1,143.86dF, and 12.7dC = 54.86dF.  Maybe not spot-on accurate, but you get the idea...

Just like my not-so-observant observations of oil bubbles when cooking malasadas:  not so accurate.

The delight full orbs above are, in my estimation, perfect.  Note the glassy bubbles I thought were a problem.  Not so.  The "problem" I commented on on the 18th turned out not to be dirty oil.  Iʻm now inclined to believe that the dark, not-so-spherical malasadas were that way because they were among the last to be cooked from a quadruple batch of dough.  Took a couple hours to complete, and by that time the dough had deflated enough so when cooked, the morsels were kinda pitiful blobs.  Tasty, but pitiful nonetheless.  

When frying in quantity, I suppose I go into automaton mode, and am not "present".  I donʻt observe every detail.  Iʻd be exhausted from the watching.  Good thing I take pictures, and better, that I look at what was before.  Above, from a couple years ago.  So.  A bit of quality control, tweaking process, and all will be better next time.

A high school classmate (!) wrote to say she made and was ono.  I was so happy to read that.  She and I have a low-grade fear of yeast.  What if no work???  Every time it does, but the anxiety is always there.  And it occurred to me that I should share a picture:

Gramma and Grampa Rapozo... Of course, just as I remember them...

And while poking around looking at pictures, one of pepeʻe hāpuʻu ʻiʻi, the one with bristly dark hair, rather than soft golden pulu pictured previously.

And for hk, over there in Kona ʻAkau, one of my all-time favorites:  Freesias.  Itʻs that season.  Or if youʻre in Waimea, Chinese lilies.  Oh the scent!!!

And, said classmate mentioned above was spending time with a Hawaiian Dictionary and the Mele I posted on January 28.  I was remiss in not following up with the Hawaiian English.  Mahalo piha to lk for editing!

The line that most causes furrowed brows:  With the pits for ʻuaʻu and ʻuala... I love saying the Hawaiian... ʻuaʻu a ʻuala...  The pāhoehoe between the two puʻu of Pāpapa is very shelly.  A lava channel there overflowed repeatedly and the flows are gassy, containing lots of blisters big and small.  Residents used the character of the pāhoehoe to their advantage, bashing pits into the surface with waterworn ʻalā (dense boulders).  Broken pōhaku were excavated and piled tidily, creating "planters" for ʻuala (sweet potatoes) and nesting habitat for seabirds, including ʻuaʻu (Hawaiian petrels).  More on this in the future...

OK then.  Another Hilo day.  Be well, wear mask, etc...

As always, with aloha,

BobbyC

maniniowali@gmail.com

Thursday, February 18, 2021 From clear sunny to overcast foggy: Kaulua!

 Thanks again to HK for keen observations.  The month of Kaulua on the Prince Kūhiō Hawaiian Civic Club moon calendar for 2021, starts February 11 and ends March 12.  

Emphasizing from yesterdays post:  Kau = a period of time, Lua = two.  Changeable, fickle, what-la...

https://www.pkhcc.org/mooncalendar/

The clear weathers yesterday transitioned to gentle rain last night.  Up at Mokuʻāweoweo, as temperature warms and snow slowly melts, billows of fogcloud are seen in the pit.

At Kaluapele, raindrops fleck the lens of the KWcam, and the low (cloud) ceiling brightens pele.

Compare these images to yesterdayʻs clear sunrise...The differences are not at all unusual.  And they make no apparent difference in the lives of birdlife, as they continue to go about their quotidian busynesses.

The staff of HVO continue to post excellent photos.  Because we canʻt GoLook in the CLOSED areas, being able see virtually and understand processes is very very helpful.  Link below for your perusal.  Set aside time to nānā (look at), because itʻs easy to go go go...just one more...

HVO Photos, Video, Webcams 

February 12, 2021 was a great day for HVO Staff working in the Closed Area, and their photography of the Lua.  The following two pics are big files, so if youʻre inclined to LookClose, download the hi-res versions and explore.

The west vent on the right, with a tiny spot of pele red at the base of the fume.  This was taken on the NW rim, view to the SE.  We can make out, just below the horizon, the dark horizontal lines of caldera-bounding faults.  The pale grey band on the flat just below them are the September 1982 flows.  And the  Pit, all of what is seen, all of it, collapsed during Summer 2018.  Those collapses, during 62 lūʻōniu, revealed the white pali top left of the wall.  Old maps of the 1800s label it as the South Sulphur Bank.  And like the sulphur bank at Haʻakulamanu we visit today, the pōhaku have been baked, steamed, and chemically altered, turning them white.  The SSB was buried as Kaluapele filled (and collapsed and filled and...) in the 1800s.

The floor of Halemaʻumaʻu, the papa of the loko ahi (surface of lava lake), is bordered by the previously referenced "bathtub ring", that flat narrow shelf encircling the floor of the Pit.  Stranded are moku, islands or islets of various sizes.  Eleven by my count to the left of the central moku nui, and a few hard to see ones on the silvery pāhoehoe floor.

That silvery floor looks more coarsely textured below, in a super-telephoto pic.  Looking down from the rim into an opening of the west vent, stalactites hang from the roof inside the visible window and fume escapes through porous pōhaku.  Pele (molten lava) bubbles up on the floor at the inlet to the loko ahi, and spreads out in concentric rough ropy pāhoehoe arcs.  Imagine the heat, the choking uahi ʻawa (sulphur smoke), the heat, the wind, the heat... Pele issues forth at about 2,000dF.  hotHotHOT...but the air is relatively frigid, so a crust forms nearly instantly.  That skin, close to the source is thin and flexible, and carried on currents twists and folds.  The farther from the inlet, the ever-so-slightly cooler, and red in the hollows fades.  What an amazement!

Note, please, the decrease in loko ahi depth from 712 feet yesterday to 705 feet today.  Pelehonuamea is active, and her works are wonders of complexity.  Thus, the only accurate answer to a "When will..." question is, "I Do Not Know".  Period.  Kinda curt, but true...

I popped into the "Monitoring" section of the HVO web page, and was reminded of the joyful fun-appearing ōlaʻi (earthquakes) graphics.  Yes, I know that for many, myself definitely included, ōlaʻi are NOT fun, but I can only smile when seeing all the colorful bubbles.  Five Years of Data Summarized.  First, a SE portion of our Hawaiʻi Nei is obscured...

Below are shown the "Last 20" today...generally the same region of the Island of Hawaiʻi.  The little cluster at the lower left corresponds with the blue (deep) cluster, lower left above.

And below, arranged by depth.  That cluster of big bubbles, top left below, nearly obscuring "Available", are the lūʻōniu, Summer 2018.

And one last Bubble thingy...I learned something from fm yesterday, clarifying what I subconsciously noted while cooking on Tuesday.  Those big shiny bubbles, and the texturecolor of the darker malasadas are NOT a good thing.  The big bubbles are a sign that the oil isnʻt clean.  Flour and water etc. get into the oil during prolonged cooking and they boil off.  That boiling is different from frying.  Texture suffers, and now I know.  PayAttention, Robert!!!

OK then!  Onward!

As always, with aloha,

BobbyC

maniniowali@gmail.com

February 17, 2021 As the sun rises...

 For awhile I was getting to bed late (too much TV!!!), and waking up late (8a-ish?).  Then today, with an appointment in Hilo, and wanting to share this, I alarmed at 5a.  MUCH better.  Iʻve missed the ear-ringing stillness of stilldark morning.  No traffic sounds (yes, in the forest cars pass by), today no rain, too early for the earliest of birds, simply quiet.  Nice.  And then I get to niele webcams and watch firstshadows play on the walls.

Up at Mokuʻāweoweo, that magic time when the sky colors, and you can just see.  But...the paliface to the left of camera, out of our sight, hasnʻt yet caught firstlight and reddened to remind us of the color of iʻa ʻāweoweo.

Further ma kai, on the Maunaloa Strip Road, the HVOcam captures similar yellows.  Clear and crisp.  I annotated a view from this cam on January 11...the camera shifted slightly, likely during maintenance, but below we can see (left of tree) Kānenuiohamo and Maunaulu (just above tree), both on the East Rift Zone.  Keeneyed folks might be able to make out a squall at sea, just to the right of KNoH.  And of course fume rises and is wafted on light trades toward Kalae.

From the HVO tower, view ma uka...just in case there lurks a desire for an early stroll to Keanakākoʻi to see for yourself the mauna revealing herself in morninglight.  See the time stamp on the image.  Go.  You wonʻt be disappointed.

And at Kaluapele, thereʻs a short window when webcams catch lighting nearly perfectly, allowing pele to be clearly seen along with surrounding topography.  Of course the thermal cam clarifies...note the glowing west vent to left of bright inlet light, and the slowly growing moku liʻi next to it.  Then there are the two moku liʻiliʻi slightly downstream, and the loko ahi evolves.

And apropos of nothing, other than the fact that I really like the color orange... Tobiko (mālolo, or flying fish roe), and sparkly nail polish (hoʻohinuhinu mikiʻao).  Why not???  We went eat, they caught my distractable eye, and voila!

Shall we return to finish our stroll in Kīpukapuaulu?  The sky was busy with clouds forming moving.  HK reminded us that this is the month of Kaulua..."two-natured" or quickly changeable, as noted recently...keeps us on our toes.  Change in the kīpuka is gradual, but inexorable.  Cannot help.  ʻŌhia die (the skeletons below), koa grow (upper left), and the forest is still forest.

On the ground in leaf litter (GottaLook there too), a māmane pod...kinda hard to see, but the podsare constricted: each seed has space, but between them the pod narrows.  Seed coats are superhard and are able to stay in the soil for years.

Iʻm peering at a big ʻol māmane Iʻve known for nearly 50 years.  Pretty much dead now, and as it slowly topples and its stored nutrients are released back into the earth, perhaps seeds fallen a long long time ago will be energized and sprout.

Beautifully pebbled bark of same tree.  Kinda fuzzy the picture, but hopefully you get the idea.

The pua māmane below were showing themselves at the Kīlauea Overlook not long ago.  Big fat cluster.  Years (Decades!!!) ago, when hk and tōb were keeping bees, we had the opportunity to taste māmane honey.  Still yet, I remember:  Butterscotch candy!  A revelation!

I noted that there arenʻt many hāpuʻu in the mesic (kinda wet kinda dry) forest of Kīpukapuaulu.  Hereʻs a better pic of pepeʻe (curled fiddleheads) than the one I posted a few days ago.  All that wooly golden pulu nestled in two or so previous seasons of fern stipes, the stems of fronds.  

And lest we think that Kīpukapuaulu is a "pristine" forest, some humongous kī.  Planted by persons unknown for purposes known only to them.  We know the utility of lāʻī (ti leaves), but the why is elusive.  The Kīpuka was unfenced and cattle roamed till the 1960ʻs.  So what we experience is an area undergoing nature rehab.

See tall kī top center?

And below, jc is 5ʻ3".  You can have calculating fun.  And we know that kī doesnʻt grow that fast.

And then, it was Valentineʻs Day.  A bouquet of roses (from Ecuador (!) was available, and leimaker extraordinare kc made with what had.  Dried lāʻī, dampened to prevent cracking, then braided.  Insert rolled rose petals... Unleash creativities, use your imaginations, and play!

OK?  Good!  Iʻm off to town again.  Tomorrow weʻll return to Kaluapele for a visit.  Till then, I need to gain control of my ʻōpū!  Yesterday, here in the forest.  The bowl held a 4x recipe of dough...   And yes, outside, socially distanced, masked friends came and left... Always a pleasure!

As always, with aloha,

BobbyC

maniniowali@gmail.com