Hawaii volcanics

Pay? Unknown. Volcanologists I know are rather frisky and enjoy being close to Pele even at unimpressive GS pay levels. Sadly not all survived until retirement.

Recent news from the site includes a large ash discharge (Friday I think). Some folks who declined mandatory evacuation got helicoptered out yesterday.

 

Of course they could. Youse can mount a rescue mission when only adversity is SO2 gas in air. Everybody wears respirators and jet engines can fly through that.

If instead, situation were ~100 knot winds and zero visibility in rain, rescue could not.

May be wasting my time swatting false equivalences.

 

Lava outflow has increased

USGS: Volcano Hazards Program HVO Kilauea

Still smaller compared to outflows in recent decades.

This part of the island is getting bigger, and this is how it happens.

Offshore megaslides and their megatsunamis are much rarer. Which is good for us, but they do show Pele is not so great at Civil Engineering.

Only from a safe distance can I say such things

 

Current earthquake activity is around crater (where water is flashing to steam) rather than in rift zone where lava is leaking

Latest Earthquakes

(That is the main page. One needs to slew and expand to see Hawaii)

 

Area covered by fresh lava is getting larger faster:

USGS: Volcano Hazards Program HVO Kilauea

Has reached sea entry, which is how this island embiggens.

Has reached geothermal generating station which seemingly will be shut down permanently (putting iron in access wells). Had provided 20% of island electricity.

 

2018 repaving by Pele may have reached extent of 1955, IDK. Point being that this disaster recurs on human timescales.

When everything cools off they'll return to thinking of that area as homesites I suppose. Wondering if buildings can be 'lava proofed' either by creating hills, or building atop concrete piers. Latter would need to survive thousands of earthquakes of ~mag 3 so that may be a dumb idea.

Or just mobile homes. With wheels still attached, which I guess makes them trailers. When hot stuff comes, just drive to FEMA parking lot. Come back later.

 

Lots of plain ol' forest fires burn down 50-sh buildings and more than a few cook people. We may lack a consistent definition of disaster.

One thing seems certain: declaring a war on volcanoes seems like empty rhetoric.

 

Groundhog Day.

 

Thanks to both for reiterating this call-and-response. It has come up repeatedly since Keeling chose that site in 1958. He already had years of experience with field sampling CO2 and understood pluses and minuses.

No mid-ocean mountains that are not of volcanic origin come to mind. An even older, thoroughly extinct volcano (like Kauai on old end of chain) could have been chosen but it was not tall enough to 'see' troposphere consistently above boundary layer.

 

Kilauea eruptions over time have built and resurfaced Kilauea East Rift Zone (with total current area of 1500 km^2). Here a summary of how that has gone over time.

1000-year time scale: 1.35 km^2 per year.
200-year time scale: 1.45 km^2 per year.
In 1955: 30 km^2.
In 1960: 10 km^2.
From 1969 to 1974: 21 km^2 per year.
From 1983 to 2016: 4.4 km^2 per year.
Since May 2018: 9 km^2.

So if Pele persists, current action could be biggest in 6 decades, but we are not there yet.