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