OCCUPATIONAL HAZARDS IN KILAUEA AND MAUNALOA, HI

Today, The Stones have assisted to a Meet Conference with DR, their Occupational Hazards teacher. DR has given them some important information about risks and hazards. While The Stones were talking to DR, The Grandma was reading about the most important risks in Hawaiian Islands, their volcanoes.

More information: Hazards

Kīlauea is an active shield volcano in the Hawaiian Islands that last erupted between 1983 and 2018.

Historically, Kīlauea is the most active of the five volcanoes that together form the island of Hawaiʻi. Located along the southeastern shore of the island, the volcano is between 210,000 and 280,000 years old and emerged above sea level about 100,000 years ago.

It is the second youngest product of the Hawaiian hotspot and the current eruptive center of the Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain. Because it lacks topographic prominence and its activities historically coincided with those of Mauna Loa, Kīlauea was once thought to be a satellite of its much larger neighbor. 

Structurally, Kīlauea has a large, fairly recently formed caldera at its summit and two active rift zones, one extending 125 km east and the other 35 km west, as an active fault of unknown depth moving vertically an average of 2 to 20 mm per year.

Kīlauea erupted nearly continuously from 1983 to 2018, causing considerable property damage, including the destruction of the towns of Kalapana and Kaimū along with the renowned black sand beach, in 1990.

On May 17, 2018 the volcano explosively erupted at the summit in Halemaʻumaʻu, throwing ash 30,000 feet into the air. Continued explosive activity at the summit caused a months-long closure of the Kīlauea section of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Vigorous eruptive lava fountains in lower Puna sent destructive rivers of molten rock into the ocean in three places.

The lava destroyed Hawaii's largest natural freshwater lake, covered substantial portions of Leilani Estates and Lanipuna Gardens, and completely inundated the communities of Kapoho, Vacationland Hawaii and most of the Kapoho Beach Lots. Lava also filled Kapoho Bay and extended new land nearly a mile into the sea. The County of Hawaii reported that 716 dwellings were destroyed by lava.

By early August the eruption subsided substantially, and the last active lava was reported at the surface on September 4, 2018. On December 5, 2018, after 90 days of inactivity from the volcano, the eruption that began in 1983 was declared to have ended.

More information: USGS

Mauna Loa, in English Long Mountain is one of five volcanoes that form the Island of Hawaii in the U.S. state of Hawaiʻi in the Pacific Ocean.

The largest subaerial volcano in both mass and volume, Mauna Loa has historically been considered the largest volcano on Earth, dwarfed only by Tamu Massif.

It is an active shield volcano with relatively gentle slopes, with a volume estimated at approximately 75,000 km3, although its peak is about 38 m lower than that of its neighbour, Mauna Kea. 

Lava eruptions from Mauna Loa are silica-poor and very fluid, and they tend to be non-explosive.

Mauna Loa has probably been erupting for at least 700,000 years, and may have emerged above sea level about 400,000 years ago. The oldest-known dated rocks are not older than 200,000 years.

The volcano's magma comes from the Hawaii hotspot, which has been responsible for the creation of the Hawaiian island chain over tens of millions of years. The slow drift of the Pacific Plate will eventually carry Mauna Loa away from the hotspot within 500,000 to one million years from now, at which point it will become extinct.

Mauna Loa's most recent eruption occurred from March 24 to April 15, 1984. No recent eruptions of the volcano have caused fatalities, but eruptions in 1926 and 1950 destroyed villages, and the city of Hilo is partly built on lava flows from the late 19th century. Because of the potential hazards it poses to population centers, Mauna Loa is part of the Decade Volcanoes program, which encourages studies of the world's most dangerous volcanoes.

Mauna Loa has been monitored intensively by the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory since 1912. Observations of the atmosphere are undertaken at the Mauna Loa Observatory, and of the Sun at the Mauna Loa Solar Observatory, both located near the mountain's summit.

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park covers the summit and the southeastern flank of the volcano, and also incorporates Kīlauea, a separate volcano.

More information: Smithsonian

 Mount Kilauea spilled glowing lava
like cords of orange neon-lighting
from seemingly nowhere.
In the blackness that engulfed the night,
electric heat lit flowing streams that fell into the sea,
disappearing in a cloud of steam with a sizzling splash.

Victoria Kahler