Big Island Thoughts

This was our second trip to the Big Island and Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Volcanoes is one of those rare places where Mother Nature provides an extreme example of your insignificance in the natural order of earth.

The Hawaiian Islands formed from the Pacific Plate moving over the Hawaiian Hotspot - a crack in the earth's mantle. The plate moves northwest at the rate of 32 miles per million years and thus Big Island is the newest of the Hawaiian Islands and Midway Island the oldest.

I think it's fitting to use the most diminutive of our group in these pictures. The picture above is at the end of Chain of Craters road which drops down from the summit of Kilauea to the ocean. At this spot you are standing on the newest ground on earth at arguably the most geographically isolated location.

Off in the direction Zach is looking, about 25 miles away and 3,000 ft below the Pacific is Lo'ihi, a growing seamount already taller than Mt. Everest. Should it keep growing, it will become Hawaii's newest island in about 100,000 years.

The ground here is part of 550 new acres created by the Kilauea shield volcano since 1983. These large bluffs of hardened lava, dozens of acres at a time, also occasionally break off and fall into the ocean. In Kilauea's march to the sea it has destroyed a town and several neighborhoods as well as Chain of Craters road past this point. It's hard not to stand here and marvel at the forces in work around you.

Mauna Loa dominates the view north from Kilauea and is the other active shield volcano on the Big Island. Mauna Loa is the largest volcano and second tallest mountain (when measured from the sea floor) on earth. Mauna Loa's sister Mauna Kea, just to the north, stands 120' higher. It's estimated Mauna Loa has been erupting for about 700,000 years and will finally stop as it drifts off the Hawaii Hotspot in 500,000 to 1 million years. Luckily, shield volcanoes do not produce sudden violent eruptions like Mt. St. Helens. They are volcanoes with Aloha.

It's no wonder the ancient Hawaiians feared their Pele, goddess of fire. To witness frequent eruptions with no understanding must have been terrifying.

Hawai'i - earth in action. Go visit.