Dispatches from Volcano: 09 June 23 Post #251...Itʻs all amazing

The sun moves and sets to the right a little more each day. Days that have (mostly) been clear and hot hotter. And, I remain well. My lā hānau was Wednesday, and HK shared a reminder that the 7th is also the birthday of Paul Gauguin, a favorite artist. Many decades ago (early 70s?) I went to New York to visit a friend from Ag school at Mānoa, Jan Johnsen. Sheʻs from NY and her dad lived on Manhattan. Jan had a family place in The Clove, near New Paltz, and was teaching at a JC in Kingston. I offered to do a slide show (remember those?) about the Island of Hawaiʻi, and had taken a fully loaded carousel with me. Somewhere between New Paltz and Kingston, we stopped at an Antique/Thrift/Secondhand shop in an old house next to the road. As we walked in, I glimpsed, out of the corner of my eye (the left one), something on a table at the entrance. The table was haphazardly piled with "stuff", topped off with a pink chenille fringed bedspread seemingly dropped from the sky. From under the spread, I saw a brown hand on a yellowish background...a painting, paha? Surprise and disbelief...I passed it and went inside and shopped for odds and ends. An old lacquer box with a papaya tree decoration, a few hand-tinted postcards of Hawaiʻi Nei... Jan asked if I was pau. I asked if she was, and she said Yes. I asked her to wait a second, and went back out to The Table, took hold of the pink chenille, and uncovered

Femmes de Tahiti, ou Sur la plage
Tahitian Women on the Beach, 1891

The original lives, as far as I know, in Musee dʻOrsay in Paris. But...it was on loan to Musee Paul Gauguin, in Papeari Tahiti, when I visited there in 1985. What are the odds???

I had been looking for a poster of this for a few years before it found me in New York. D. Knight-Fontaine had copied it in oils on canvas, and I acquired it for $12.00U.S. Jan wondered how I knew? I chuckled and explained the hand on the sand, and how I seem to have great visual recall. Iʻve had the painting ever since...

Moving on... On the off chance you havenʻt heard, Pelehonuamea reappeared in Halemaʻumaʻu the morning of the 7th (!!!) at 445ish. Her vigorous bombastic entrance was enthralling. Here in Keaʻau, abed, I knew something was up. Between birthday messages and luaʻi pele messages, my phone happily pinged away.

Above is a screenshot from a USGS HVO video showing the initial outburst at 444a. Shortly after sunrise, HVO volcanologists took to the air, and fortuitously shot a scene (below) much like the header on this blog. Note the swell of Maunaloa, and the now green pastures at Ohaikea. That dark diagonal line at bottom right is the spatter rampart of the April 1982 luaʻi pele. Note that to the casual observer, the floor of Halemaʻumaʻu, below, shows spots of pele here and there, when in actuality, the surface is entirely hot, in keeping with a descriptive name, Papalauahi...a surface destroyed by lava flows.

USGS HVO

I never tire of dawn light. Or twilight for that matter. Good balance between bright and dark, with enough ambient light so context and locations are clear. Contrast pic below with that above. A bit less vigorous, but too, increased light apparently diminished visible red pele.

USGS HVO

Below is also from the morning of the 7th. A dike, or conduit feeding magma from depth to the surface,

intersected the talus slope on the wall of Halemaʻumaʻu. Top of fissure is about 100ʻ above floor.

USGS HVO

And a closeup a little later on the 7th. Endlessly fascinating are the works of the Woman of the Pit.

Below, the tilt at the UWE (Uēkahuna) recorder at the summit of Kīlauea. A M3.5ish ōlaʻi (earthquake), then a dip and a sharp uptick with a couple more ōlaʻi thrown in for good measure.

The screenshot below, this afternoon (the 9th) at 410p, of "recent" earthquakes. Note that yellows are 2 days to 2 weeks old. No orange and no red. At the risk of bachi, things seem stable...

You may recall a map, similar to that below, shared with you in the past. Lots of info, particularly in the boxes at the bottom. Note, again, that after the Hulihia of 2018, Halemaʻumaʻu was an inverted cone. Consequently, itʻll take longer to fill each incremental foot of lake, because of the attendant increase in surface area.

As depicted on the map above, the next kaulu (bench or terrace) to be inundated will be the down-dropped block (d-db), immediately east of the loko ahi (the lava lake).

Below, that bench is at the right edge of the loko, just left of the white plumes of vapor.

As an aside, for fans of webcams, many of them have been repositioned to take into account eruptive changes. The photo below is from the S1 camera. Uēkahuna is the high point on the rim, with the bumps of the former Jaggar Museum and Hawaiian Volcano Observatory protruding. The bluish slope of Maunaloa is at left.

Too, recall that the pali immediately behind the d-db was formed in 2018. Itʻs 450 feet tall at its highest. Another amazement. Behind it is the floor of Kaluapele.

Same cam on May 21, 2023. Note above the slight change in floor height by the down-dropped block.

Below, the B1 cam, now located above the d-db. I appreciate the ferns at bottom right, and bottom left. The smooth swell left of center is Maunaloa, while if you zoom in, Maunakea peeks above the right horizon. The dark diagonal on the d-db, kinda parallel to the new pali, is that April ʻ82 spatter rampart.

Then the KW cam gazes toward Puʻupuaʻi, just left of center. Itʻs the rust-colored puʻu of cinder left during the 1959 eruption of Kīlauea iki.

And finally is V1. See the vent on the wall of Halemaʻumaʻu? The Kīlauea iki eruption started on the wall of that crater, and the lake ended up drowning the vent.

Below, a crude attempt at "Before" and "Now", photos by buddy GH and myself, at Uēkahuna. Look good at the edge of the lake where it abuts the d-db. Just a few feet more...

The white pali was exposed during the Hulihia, and is white because the pōhaku (rocks) have been thermally altered (baked).

And, finally, apropos of not a whole lot...friend Suze went Japan not long ago and shared these. Tea plantation and pickers dressed in traditional, and Iʻd guess completely utilitarian garb.