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Rock Face of Kilauea Volcano Collapses
jurt1235 writes "The rockface on the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii recently collapsed over the course of about four hours. The collapse was predicted. The USGS has some great pictures of nature in action. The new rockface, which most likely will fall again, is already being build up by the vulcano." From the CNN article: "The plume, 6 feet in diameter, sent up a tower of steam as it hit the water and began forming a ramp of new land. The collapse of solidified lava shelf and sea cliff Monday was the largest since Kilauea Volcano began its current eruption in 1983."
The rock face of Kilauea didn't collapse. A shelf on the coastline formed by lava flows from Kilauea collapsed. Kilauea is located fairly far inland and has no chance of collapsing without taking a decent portion of the island of Hawai'i with it.
"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it
Additionally, you can find pictures of the lava and a description of the hike to the spot that collapsed on the OutdoorDB wiki.
Laboratree - Scientific collaboration based on OpenSocial.
For a (usually up to date) view of the nearby lava vent that is the source of all this try http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/cam/index.htm It is currently showing yesterday's image.
"Rock Face of Kilauea Volcano Collapses" almost had me lunging for CNN in the hope of spectacular footage of Hawaii sliding into the ocean beneath mile-high plumes of steam and lava, while the USA's west coast falls into panic before the approaching tsunami.
"Biggish Lumps of Lava Miles from Kilauea Fall Into Sea" would be a more accurate description. Maybe the editors can use that for next week's dupe.
Apparently a good part of Mauna Loa did collapse and the resulting tsunami was a few hundred meters high.
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Bad news is that if it happened again, it would decimate Hawaii, but the good news (if you can call it that) is that this sort of tsunami would attenuate before reaching the mainland.
http://www.mala.bc.ca/~earles/kohala-tsunami-sep0
Yup, the description kind of sucked, but the link was decent. Before and after photos of the collapsed lava delta from the website linked.
Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
For anyone who didn't get it you might read the wiki page for Scientology. However, to spare you from going through an entire page on that "religion", here's the related excerpt:
Space planes and nuclear weapons. The basis for any worthwhile religion.
[insert comments about WMDs and Bush searching for Xenu here
"What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
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However, to spare you from going through an entire page on that "religion", here's the related excerpt:
Heh, better yet, download the really funny Southpark Episode on scientology from Xenu.net (free and legal, thanks to Matt Stone and Trey Parker). This is the one that asks Tom Cruise to come out of the closet ~forty times...
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
You're probably thinking of something like the La Palma Wave that scientists say could be caused by the collapse of the Cumbre Vieja volcano.
"So after all this, you make my case for me. To end this stalemate, you must die..."
It was a joke on how the "church" of scientology has sued people in the past who have posted their secret church doctrin. They made their names John and Jane Smith as a joke about trying to protect themselves from a lawsuit.
"Who owns it?"
The federal government. It's all generally a part of Volcanoes National Park.
"If my 2 3/8 acre lot suddenly got bigger on on side, somehow, would I own it? My neighbor?"
First off, let's assume for the moment that the process of adding new land doesn't destroy any improvmenets (i. e. lava didn't run down your house). If you're on the wrong side of Kilauea, do you want to know what your property insurance rates look like?
But beyond that, even after everything had cooled and solidified, this new land generally isn't anything you'd want. It is black rock; it will bake your sorry ass off in the sun (just ask the triathelets in the Ironman, and the parts they run/bike through is much older and much less reflective than the new stuff). Generally speaking, on Hawai'i, there are two flavors of cooled lava: 'a'a and pahoehoe. 'A'a is essentially broken, jumbled black rocks, but very sharp broken, jumbled black rocks (new rocks means no erosion) that can be trecharous to walk on and can kill a new pair of shoes (or your knees and hands when you stumble). Pahoehoe looks like solidifed toffee, a single, solid sheet of EasyBake Oven.
Not all of the island of Hawai'i is the lush, tropical paradise everybody writes home about. Tropical rainforests (and all that it entails) on the windward side, desert on the leeward, snow on Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, and an outright moonscape on the wrong side of the volcanoes. Even outside of the national park there is a whole mess of land that won't be selling any time soon.
"Would I have to pay increased taxes on my suddenly-newer lot?"
Probably the other direction; your property value would likely plummet once Pele is done with it.
Use your common sense; 14 hikers tumbling into a volcanic collapse would have made the news everywhere in the US. Yet you will find zero about this on Google, despite this having supposedly happened this year. And you will find plenty of links about the handful of actual deaths.
- http://volcano.und.edu/vwdocs/frequent_questions/
g rp4/question1465.html
- http://volcano.und.edu/vwdocs/HawaiiQuest/gen_haw
a ii_volcs/question10.html
Those pages both mention the 1993 fatality. Of course it's possible that neither have been updated in the last few years, but I'd still expect to be able to find some evidence somewhere on the net.First, Kilauea is not errupting per-say. Kilauea volcano, and the Kilauea caldera, are located within the park itself and the caldera is NOT errupting. Lava is (and has for many years now) been moving from under kilauea caldera towards the Pu'u O'o vent, about 15 or so miles away (as the Nene fly) where the lava both comes out in surface flows as well as moves through lava tubes. While Pu'u O'o does sit on, and is part of, kilauea caldera - and while one could technically say that kilauea volcano is errupting, it is a bit misleading.
Also... the 'rock face' of kilauea did NOT collapse. The rock face is just dandy and totally intact as it is only a mile from me - and has a very nice road all the way around it for people to enjoy.
What REALLY happened is that lava flowing through lava tubes from the Pu'u O'o vent, which sits at about 2500 feet above sea level, is moving down a steep pali (cliff) and out onto the flats near sea level. It continues allt he way to the ocean where it comes out of the cliff side and pours into the ocean. Over time a false chunk of land builds up - often many many acres in size. This new land is called a Lava Bench and it is extremely unstable as it is both very new, has active lava in it, and is being undercut by the ocean water. Over time (anywhere from days, to months) this bench builds to the point where it can't sustain it's own weight and other environmental factors, and at that point it breaks appart in a spectacular burst of lava and explosions and disappears into the ocean.
This has been going on for a very long time now. I personally have witnessed two lava benches collapse only yards from me (one in fact threw red hot lava up into the air, and over my head, to land behind me - needless to say we quickly retreated to a safer position).
As per the question being asked of who owns the new land... it depends on where the lava comes out. The lava tends to have about a 6 to 8 mile wide area that it likes to flow. Sometimes it is entirely on one side, placing it in the park boundries and thus under control of the feds. Other times it swings the other side and flows outside of park boundries, and away from the feds - to spots where we can have much more fun playing with lava.
And play we like to do... besides cooking in lava (die-hard slashdotters may require my question in the interview to Alton Brown on how cooking in lava works, and his flippant reply questioning the type of drugs I was on), dropping steel cable into lava tubes to pull out samples, and other more questionable practices that will go unmentioned here.
However, it was NOT the rock face of kilauea caldera (volcano) that has collapsed... it is merely the cliff side and lava bench which are extremely unstable and EXPECTED to collapse. This one made the news only because it was very very big - but not unexpected, not rare, not the caldera or volcano itself, and certainly not something which is unusual.
If you want more information about our wonderful volcano - and recipes for cooking in it, or poking things in it, or dangers of lava, or even how to walk on the hot stuff... see our portal below:
http://www.instanthawaii.com/cgi-bin/hawaii?Volcan o
Mahalo nui loa!