KALAPANA
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LAVA PATTERNS Above are interesting lava rock patterns that we took with a Sony DCS P1 Cybershot digital camera. (Photos will automatically swipe through the small screen if your Web browser is Java-enabled) Lava rocks may have a pumice-like finish, but they are surprisingly slippery so be careful when stepping on them. |
| In anticipation of this adventure, we rented a truck to withstand the rough driving. From Volcano Village, we drove south on Route 130 toward Kalapana & drove further on a bulldozed road for 45 minutes. This route allowed us to to take a close-up look at the lava without having to take the usual 2 mile-walk from the end of Chain of Craters Road. | |
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There was new lava everywhere, as far as the eyes can see. As you draw nearer to fresh lava flows, you will feel the heat intensifying, the smell of sulfuric dioxide stronger, and the hot gases more visible to the naked eye. |
| New lava have piled over old ones. You can spot the most recent lava flows—they are the blackest and least vegetated. (Notice the black areas along the "pali" - i.e. cliff, on the right & bottom photos) |  |
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Repeated lava flow from Mt. Kilauea's eruption between 1983 & 1990 covered towns along the southern coast, burning 17 homes, destroying highways, and historical sites. It was the 1990 lava flow that had moved relentlessly through the Kalapana area. |
| There were only 2 homes left standing amidst the sea of lava (see photo to the right). To this day, the residents have not abandoned these homes. We also spotted a car still embedded in the lava flow. We learned from the helicopter pilot who gave us the air tour that the residents in this area use a motorcycle to cross the lava fields to get supplies that they need! |  |
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When you take out insurance against destruction by lava, you're covered if the house is directly damaged. However, if your property is totally surrounded by lava but the house is intact, the insurance does not cover loss of access to your home! |
| We drove on a road that used to be the highway. Old lava flows had taken over a good portion of the freeway. It would be smooth driving, then very bumpy when you drive over the lava, then smooth again, bumpy... this went on for several miles. |
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We kept driving on the primitive track until our path was blocked. We sat in our truck & it took us a while to realize that fresh, oozing, glowing lava was flowing right before our eyes! The new flow had blocked less than the width of the bulldozed road when we got there but moved to cross the road rather quickly. The liquid rock was crackling, glowing, & oozing like cake batter. ( photos left & below). |
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This type of lava flow is called the pahoehoe. (see explanation further down below). Chip parked the car more than 100 feet away from the new flow. Meanwhile, I wanted to get nearer the lava but could not stand the extreme heat. New lava flows are about 2000F in temperature.
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This is an aerial shot from the helicopter tour we took the day after we were at Kalapana. Notice how the road ended (maginified & encircled in left photo). That's the spot where the new lava had flowed right before our truck! |
| To the right and below are photos of the same lava flow that prevented us from moving any farther. Notice how the road has been blocked by new lava flow. (Click photo on right for to see another image.--->) |  |
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I found a small tree trunk that was 3 inches in diameter at one end, about 7 feet long & used it to poke the glowing lava. The liquid stone felt dense, rubbery, and resilient, like the well-toned muscles of Mother Earth. The tree trunk hasn't even come in contact with the lava but its tip caught fire instantly. The lava quickly cooled off on the surface of the road and looked very much like blobs of mercury; however, the layer beneath it continued to glow and ooze. |
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It didn't take long - perhaps less than half an hour for the entire width of the road to get covered with lava. We could feel the extreme heat from the surrounding lava flows.
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As of this writing (end of April 2001), the Kilauea lava update reports that more new lava has flowed over the road and found its way into the ocean from this same area where these photos were taken! Such is a much awaited event both by locals and tourists. |
| Visitors are warned that sulfuric dioxides (i.e., volcanic fumes) are hazardous to your health. Anyone with breathing and heart problems, infants, young children, and pregnant women should avoid this area. |  |
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The first kind is Pahoehoe lava which is a cake like batter that flows smoothly. It has more gas content, higher temperature, less stress, and flows faster than the a'a lava which is the exact opposite. Don't these (left Photo) look like people piled on top of one another? Eeeeew. |
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The second kind is A'a lava which has less gas & goes through more stretching like a taffy. This stress causes it to explode & look like soil that had been tilled. Most of the lava found along the road of the Kona International Airport are of this kind. |
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Sometimes you'll see a mixture of both pahoehoe & a'a lava on the same area as shown on the photos here. I took these photos along the coastline of the Chain of Craters Road, Hawaiian National Volcanoes Park. |
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| This shot was taken from a seawall in Kailua, Kona. You'll see this type of wall used a lot in the Big Island. |  |
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Lava rocks have glasslike fibers (like the metallic streaks of the photo on the left) believed by locals to be Pele's hair. When held, these fibers can cause splinter cuts on your hands, so make sure to wear gloves (gardening gloves) for protection if you plan to handle them. We meant to bring this piece of lava rock home as a souvenir but locals warned us that Pele's curse could bring us bad luck. Yikes! |
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We heard stories of tourists who have taken some lava rock back home with them but have decided to mail them back to the hotel concierge when they learned of the bad luck that it could bring the bearer. The chopper tour took us right over the crater of Mt. Kilauea. There was a lot of steam on one side of it as shown on the photos below. From an aerial view, one could see a vast sea of lava everywhere. We felt the heat from below us intensifying inside the chopper despite the airconditioner being on full blast. |
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We spotted some vents with glowing lava in the fields like the photo to the left. |
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Air Tour We took a one-hour helicopter tour of the Big Island with the Blue Hawaiian Helicopters (we used this same company for our air tour in Maui) at the Hilo Airport. They have earned the reputation of being Hawaii's premiere & largest helicopter tour with a perfect safety record — more than 70,000 flight hours without even an incident, much less an accident. They have the finest equipment and have veteran military-trained pilots. They set up several cameras inside & outside the plane to take several angles of the actual footage of the entire trip. This is then made available to the passengers for purchase after the tour. Makes a great souvenir! ( $20.00/VHS tape ) |
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| We also flew over the area where we drove to Kalapana the day before. The road where we stopped had now been totally covered with new lava (in red circle). We noticed that there was new lava formed right before the area where our truck was parked the day before (in yellow circle)! Had we decided to stay there a little longer, we would have been locked in by fresh lava flow. What a scary thought! Whew! |  |
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Pulama pali These close up photos of Pulama Pali were also taken from the chopper. It was the same pali (cliff) that we took shots of while we were in the lava-stricken town of Kalapana the day before. |
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