Breakout!

While hiking the other day...





This is a lava breakout. Lest you think volcanoes go boom all the time, this is the only current surface activity on the entire island. I have some pics in the photo album of the solid results of breakouts like this. Its fascinating watching the real-time formation of lava morphology (forms). It is not often in geology that one is able to see the actual process of formation of a given structure or phenomena. Real-time Geology! Woohoo!

Digital Imagery of the Awesomeness of Nature

I mean "awesomeness" in the classic sense. As in, that which inspires awe, a feeling of terror, smallness, inferiority, that which makes us so very aware that we are merely human.

Well, to be perfectly honest, most of what follows is better suited to a volcanology textbook than the Book of Revelations. I've been taking pictures of features that I feel most appropriately showcase the strange and wonderful world of active volcanoes.

Unfortunately, Picasa is being most unhelpful....Ok, this is a load of bullshit. Back in the spring, I could upload an entire album with on click onto Picasa. Now I have to do it five pictures at a time! Screw that, this is a regression. I thought everything on the Net was supposed to get better. Where's the Facebook-style outcry on the castration of Picasa?

Booooooooooooooooooo *breath* boooooooooooooooooooooooo

Here is a video of the coastal entry flow, ie where the active lava flow is emptying into the ocean.



Alrighty then, I'll keep posting photos to Observations_Hawaii_Volcanoes on Picasa, and hopefully we'll eventually get a whole album up. Damn Picasa, damn Google.

A final note on Hawaii's awesomeness... the highest Obama vote % of any state in the nation!!

Why Volcanoes go boom ,part deux

All right, I promised an explanation of sorts for why Kilauea occasionally violently explodes. The best idea i've heard (please note that this is merely an educated guess swiped from some smart volcanologists) is that falling rocks around the crater rim trigger the eruptions. There is an active lava surface a few hundred meters below the rim, not exactly sure as it certainly fluctuates. Anyways, the surface of the lava tends to crust over, which seals in gases that would enjoy bubbling out of the lava. The rocks tumble down and bust through the crust, which all of a sudden releases a huge amount of pressure, resulting in an explosion of pulverized lava crust (seen as ash) and gas.

Any questions?

As far as pic's go, I'm currently working on a sweet volcano photo album, complete w/ witty comments about the poor fool about to get overrun by the advancing flow...