Pele is coming to the Puna District

The town of Pahoa in the Puna District is about to have a visitor. Pele, the Hawaiian Goddess of the volcano, is about to enter town. The lava has been approaching for some time. I wrote a post last month about it. However, it has now crossed the first road in town and buried a cemetery. It is moving about 10-15 yards an hour and is about 100 yards from the nearest home. This is an anxious time for the residents in the area. Most already have evacuation plans and are just waiting for the order to go. The flow is about 600 yards from the main road in town. Beyond that road is Route 130, which is the main access into the area. At the present rate that artery may be cut next week, leaving only jeep roads for the residents to evacuate.

Notice the utility pole on the right of the picture. The base has been reinforced with heat resistant structures to protect it from the lava so that power will not be cut off to the district. It is an experiment by the power company, that is first being tried in Puna. So far it is working.

Consequently, the last pages in my book  no longer constitute a viable tour. Certainly people who are trying to evacuate do not need 100 people in their front yard. Access to the area will be restricted to residents. Work is being done on a section of Chain of Craters Road through the National Park, which has been buried by lava for years,  to allow residents a way to get out should the jeep roads be covered with lava. However, it will probably be December before that work is done and when finished it will only be accessible to residents.

Snow has arrived in Hawaiʻi

I realize that it is only mid-October but yesterday (October 13, 2014) we had our first snow storm of the season. The summits of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa had a fair amount of snow. We often have snow earlier than many places on the mainland. You can view the site below at: http://www.jach.hawaii.edu/jac-bin/irtvid. You are seeing the view from the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT). I prefer the UKIRT site to  others  on the mountain because it not only gives you a view near the summit, but also gives the current weather conditions on the same page.

It is quite evident from the picture that not enough snow fell to make it a ski day for the island residents. That will come later in the season. We usually get enough snow to ski, but there are no ski lifts. You need to have a group with a four-wheel drive vehicle, You drive to the top of the slope and everyone except the driver skis down. The driver takes the vehicle to the bottom and picks everyone up and returns to the top. Drivers are then switched so that everyone gets a chance to ski.

Is Mauna Loa Awakening?

            Each day I look at the report of earthquakes on the Big Island issued by the United States Geological Observatory. It can be found at : http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/seismic/volcweb/earthquakes/. After 20 years of looking at that website it has become very noticeable that there are a lot more earthquakes on Mauna Loa than there used to be. Most of them are concentrated on the southwest rift zone and an the south flank of the volcano. Many of these earthquakes are deep-seated, usually indicative of molten magma pushing into cracks in the volcanic edifice. Magma when it reaches the surfaces loses gases and becomes lava.  In addition to the earthquakes, measurements of the deformation of the volcano indicate that magma is indeed pushing into cracks and deforming the volcano. This information is available at: http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/activity/maunaloastatus.php and http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/maunaloa/current/currentmonitoring.php.

            Does this mean that Mauna Loa is about to spring into action? After all, it hasn't erupted since 1984 and is overdue for an eruption. It has erupted 33 times in the last 170 years. At this time the earthquakes are smaller than those observed prior to the eruptions in 1975 and 1984. So while activity is occurring within the mass of the volcano, an eruption is not imminent. If, however, the magnitude and frequency of the earthquakes increase then we may experience an eruption. The question is not whether Mauna Loa will erupt, but when and where.