One of the things that I wanted to see in Hawai'i was the volcanoes. Well, as luck would have it, none of them were very active while I was there. The most active one is Kilauea and the active crater , Halema'uma'a, was puffing gas and a bit of fine ash, but no lava. You can get fairly close to the edge of the crater of Kilauea and it is much bigger than you would expect. Click on the photo and look carefully. The smoke is coming from an obvious crater, but the main crater starts just in front of where I am sitting and covers most of the picture. The far edge is the line of cliffs just below the horizon. When the lava is flowing this huge area is full. The little plumes are coming from steam vents. There are thousands of these vents over hundreds of acres near Kilauea. I would love to see the volcano when it is more active, but you can't get as close then. You can get an idea of the amount of lava that flows in the bottom picture. This was taken on a lava flow that covers thousands of acres. It came from Makaopuhi crater, on the horizon behind me, and goes from the crater right down for 10 Km into the sea. You aren't allowed to take any lava away with you, or move it around, but somebody had made this small altar, obviously for the use of visiting small bears. This lava flowed about 25 years ago and you can see that plants are starting to grow in the cracks. Eventually, over centuries, they will break the lava down into very rich soil. More volcano photos to come :)
Labels: Hawaii, volcano
# posted by Bart Bear @ 12:11 pm
