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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."
(ducks)
You are not the customer.
The new rockface, which most likely will fall again, is already being build up by the vulcano.
This should read:
The new rock face, which most likely will fall again, is already being built up by the volcano.
Have the Slashdot editors been replaced with ESL monkeys?
Or perhaps, are there no open source apps with spelling and grammar checking?
Or perhaps, do they just not care because idiots like me will probably continue coming here out of habit, regardless of how bad the writing and editing is?
I come here for the high quality spelling and grammar corrections in the comments.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
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
"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.
Interesting story about this. I recently moved to Hawaii, and some friends related to me a few months ago about their visit to Volcano National Park last January, when they were allowed to actually hike right up to the lava flowing into the ocean. They said they could come as close as 10 feet away before the radiant heat of the liquid rock became too much. And it's a beautiful sight at night, with red streaks of lava on the hillside in the distance, flowing about a half mile across the flat shelf (or bench, as geologists call it) from the base of the hill into the ocean. So of course I wanted to go see this too, b/c how often do you get to see real, molten lava, right out of the earth's mantle??? Anyone who thinks this isn't interesting to geeks should think again!
So I finally got a chance to go with some friends last Friday, day after Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, the park rangers had closed the trail a mile and a half from the lava flow, saying that a bench had collapsed into the ocean several months ago, taking 14 hikers with it, who were never found. I can only imagine that they either drowned, were incinerated, or were buried alive by the landslide, or some ungodly combination of the three. There are also a lot of signs at the park with pictures of a bench breaking off into the ocean and an unfortunate stick figure hiker falling in with it, but the pics are out of scale and make the bench look like a rather small edge of land by the sea, easily steered clear of.
Anyway, it was a disappointment b/c I really wanted to see the lave up close. My friends and I debated a bit about sneaking out across the lava fields anyway, which would have been quite easy to do since the ranger station was over a mile back down the road, and there were no rangers guarding the trail or anywhere near. We figured we would just stay a good 50 yards or more inland, away from these fragile "benches". We didn't care so much about seeing the lave go into the ocean as we did about just seeing it flowing across the ground.
But in the end we decided to turn back and head home, and return another day. Only yesterday did I see in the news that a ~40-acre bench had broken off into the ocean. Holy moly, 40 acres! And that was only three days after we almost snuck out on this exact bench, not realizing its massive size! I also discovered that that bench that took the 14 hikers with it was actually ~12 acres, certainly not easily steered clear of. Further, like an iceberg, the lava flowing across the surface of the bench is only a fraction of the total flow, as most of it flows down the hill, hits the bench at the base of the hill, and seeps into tunnels which spread out over a wider swath than the surface flow, and through which it continues its flow to the ocean. These hollow tunnels, combined with the porous brittleness of hardened lava rock and erosion from the ocean water seaping into the bench causes large sections to crumble and break off periodically.
It's all quite fascinating, but the moral of the story is, kids, when the park ranger at a volcano tells you not to do something but doesn't volunteer the details or say why, trust him anyway and don't do it!
Flying is easy, just throw yourself at the ground and miss. -Douglas Adams
Now THAT is a money shot.
"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.