Established on Kīlauea in 1912, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO), presently a branch of the United States Geological Survey, is the primary organization associated with the monitoring, observance, and study of Hawaiian volcanoes. Thomas A. Jaggar, the observatory's founder, attempted a summit expedition to Mauna Loa to observe its 1914 eruption, but was rebuffed by the arduous trek required (see Ascents). After soliciting help from Lorrin A. Thurston, in 1915 he was able to persuade the US Army to construct a "simple route to the summit" for public and scientific use, a project completed in December of that year; the Observatory has maintained a presence on the volcano ever since.
Monitoring
Mauna Loa
Mauna Loa | Monitoring
Thomas A. Jaggar. Lorrin A. Thurston Thomas A. Jaggar Thomas Jaggar, Lorrin A. Thurston
when was the last time mauna loa volcano erupted
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March 24 to April 15, 1984.
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what is the main entity?
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It is one of five volcanoes that form the Island of Hawaii in the U.S. state of Hawaiʻi in the Pacific Ocean.
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what is its weather like?
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It has a tropical climate with warm temperatures at lower elevations and cool to cold temperatures higher up year-round.
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who monitors this volcano?
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The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, a branch of the United States Geological Survey.
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who founded it ?
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Established on Kīlauea in 1912, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO), presently a branch of the United States Geological Survey, is the primary organization associated with the monitoring, observance, and study of Hawaiian volcanoes. Thomas A. Jaggar, the observatory's founder, attempted a summit expedition to Mauna Loa to observe its 1914 eruption, but was rebuffed by the arduous trek required (see Ascents). After soliciting help from Lorrin A. Thurston, in 1915 he was able to persuade the US Army to construct a "simple route to the summit" for public and scientific use, a project completed in December of that year; the Observatory has maintained a presence on the volcano ever since.
Mauna Loa | Monitoring
Besides the oral history of Ancient Hawaiians, several early explorers left records of observations. Rev. William Ellis kept a journal of his 1823 missionary tour, and Titus Coan documented eruptions through 1881. Scientists often debated the accuracy of these descriptions. When geologist Thomas Jaggar of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology gave a lecture in Honolulu in 1909, he was approached by businessman Lorrin A. Thurston (grandson of Asa Thurston who was on the 1823 missionary tour) about building a full-time scientific observatory at Kīlauea. The Hawaiian Volcano Research Association was formed by local businessmen for its support. George Lycurgus, who owned the Volcano House at the edge of the main caldera, proposed a site adjacent to his hotel and restaurant.
Hawaiian Volcano Observatory | History
After a lecture on his Martinique expedition in Honolulu, Jaggar was approached by Lorrin A. Thurston a prominent Honolulu lawyer and businessman. Thurston, like Jaggar, believed that Kilauea was a prime site for a permanent volcano observatory and inquired of Jaggar, "Is it then a question of money?". Within a year of this conversation, Thurston and other businessmen raised financial backing for the Hawaii Volcano Research Association. A small observing station was set up on the rim of Halemaumau crater (a pit crater within Kilauea's summit caldera). In 1912, support was forthcoming from an MIT alumnus and construction of the new Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) began.
Thomas Jaggar | Hawaiian Volcano Observatory
Three of the earliest recorded observers of the volcanoes were the Scottish scientists Archibald Menzies in 1794, James Macrae in 1825, and David Douglas in 1834. Just reaching the summits proved daunting: Menzies took three attempts to ascend Mauna Loa, and Douglas died on the slopes of Mauna Kea. The United States Exploring Expedition spent several months studying the islands in 1840–1841. American geologist James Dwight Dana was on that expedition, as was Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, who spent most of the time leading a team of hundreds that hauled a pendulum to the summit of Mauna Loa to measure gravity.
Hawaii hotspot | Modern studies
Charles Wilkes camped in this area on the United States Exploring Expedition in 1840, on his way to Mauna Loa. About 1846 a primitive one-room grass shelter was constructed at the rim of the Kīlauea crater by Benjamin Pitman, the first hotel to call itself "Volcano House". Sometimes visitors would show up after the long journey and nobody would be home. A more substantial wood frame structure was built in 1866 with four bedrooms, parlor, and dining room. Mark Twain stayed here, and wrote about his visit in the book "Roughing It".
Volcano House | Early visitors
The first instruments were in a cellar called the Whitney (for the donor) vault adjacent to the Volcano House Hotel. During his early years as Director, Jaggar struggled after private endowments with the hope of eventually securing sponsorship by the Federal Government. In 1919, Jaggar convinced the National Weather Service to fund HVO. The United States Geological Survey took over its operation in 1924, with the exception of a brief hiatus during the Great Depression when HVO was run by the National Park Service. In 1922, volcanologist Thomas Jaggar suggested using Kilauea’s heat for geothermal energy:
Thomas Jaggar | Hawaiian Volcano Observatory
In 1911 and 1912, small cabins were built on the floor of the caldera next to the main active vent of Halemaʻumaʻu, but these were hard to maintain. MIT added $25,000 in support in 1912 from the estate of Edward and Caroline Whitney to build a more permanent facility. The first instruments were housed in a cellar next to the Volcano House called the Whitney Laboratory of Seismology. Inmates from a nearby prison camp had excavated through of volcanic ash. Massive reinforced concrete walls supported a small building built on top of the structure. Professor Fusakichi Omori of Japan, now best known for his study of aftershocks, designed the original seismometers.
Hawaiian Volcano Observatory | History
Thomas Augustus Jaggar, Jr. (January 24, 1871 – January 17, 1953) was an American volcanologist. He founded the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and directed it from 1912 to 1940.
Thomas Jaggar | Introduction
Significantly predating the current observatories there is evidence of active astronomy on Mauna Kea in the 1901 Land Office Map of the Island of Hawaii showing the "Hawaii Astronomy Station" near the Mauna Kea summit. After studying photos for NASA's Apollo program that contained greater detail than any ground-based telescope, Gerard Kuiper began seeking an arid site for infrared studies. While he first began looking in Chile, he also made the decision to perform tests in the Hawaiian Islands. Tests on Maui's Haleakalā were promising, but the mountain was too low in the inversion layer and often covered by clouds.
Mauna Kea Observatories | Origin and background
In 1957–1958, the International Geophysical Year, Keeling obtained funding from the Weather Bureau to install infrared gas analyzers at remote locations, including the South Pole and on the volcano of Mauna Loa on the island of Hawaii. Mauna Loa was chosen as a long-term monitoring site due to its remote location far from continents and its lack of vegetation. Keeling and his collaborators measured the incoming ocean breeze above the thermal inversion layer to minimize local contamination from volcanic vents. The data were normalized to remove any influence from local contamination. Due to funding cuts in the mid-1960s, Keeling was forced to abandon continuous monitoring efforts at the South Pole, but he scraped together enough money to maintain operations at the Mauna Loa Observatory, which have continued to the present day.
Keeling Curve | Mauna Loa measurements
Other groups began requesting subleases on the newly accessible mountaintop. By 1970, two telescopes had been constructed by the United States Air Force and Lowell Observatory. In 1973, Canada and France agreed to build the 3.6 m CFHT on Mauna Kea. However, local organizations started to raise concerns about the environmental impact of the observatory. This led the Department of Land and Natural Resources to prepare an initial management plan, drafted in 1977 and supplemented in 1980. In January 1982, the University of Hawaiʻi Board of Regents approved a plan to support the continued development of scientific facilities at the site.
Mauna Kea Observatories | Origin and background
In 1909 Perret suggested to the geophysicists Thomas Jaggar from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Reginald A. Daly of Harvard University to establish a continuous monitoring station at Kilauea. Perret spent four months on Kilauea in 1911, where he began to make the first long-term observations of activity from the edge of the crater Halemaʻumaʻu. The station was the forerunner of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, which was built by Thomas Jaggar the following year. When Mount Pelée on the French Caribbean island of Martinique became active again in 1929, some years after the devastating eruption of 1902 Perret was one of the first scientists on site.
Frank A. Perret | Introduction
The trip included a dinner cooked over active lava vents. He hosted a visit by the Secretary of the Interior James Rudolph Garfield in 1908, and another congressional visit in 1909. He convinced Governor Walter F. Frear to introduce a resolution supporting the idea, and formed a survey team to propose exact boundaries. His newspaper printed endorsements of the park by President Theodore Roosevelt (a classmate at Columbia), conservationist John Muir, and powerful senator Henry Cabot Lodge. In 1913 he explored a lava tube in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park that is named after him. The park was finally formed in 1916.
Lorrin A. Thurston | Business
Mauna Loa erupted in 1940 and 1942, and Mac was given time to describe those eruptions; he met Thomas A. Jaggar (1871–1953, HVO's first director), then retired in Honolulu. On the morning of 1 April 1946 an Aleutian tsunami struck Hawaii. Macdonald, Francis Shepard of Scripps and Doak Cox, geologist for the Hawaii Sugar Planter's Association, wrote a study on it.
Gordon A. MacDonald | Life
The feat of summitting Mauna Loa was not to be repeated for forty years. The Hawaiian Islands were the site of fervent missionary work, with the first group of missionaries arrived at Honolulu in 1820 and the second in 1823. Some of these missionaries left for Hawaiʻi island, and spent ten weeks traveling around it, preaching at local villages and climbing Kilauea, from which one of its members, William Ellis, observed Mauna Loa with the aid of a telescope and ascertained it and Kea to be "perhaps 15,000 to 16,000 feet above the level of the sea"; they did not, however, attempt to climb the volcano itself.
Mauna Loa | European summiting attempts
This seismograph vault (building number 29 on a site inventory) is state historic site 10-52-5506, and was added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 24, 1974 as site 74000292. From 1912 until 1919, the observatory was run by Jaggar personally. Many important events were recorded, although as pioneers, the team often ran into major problems. For example, in 1913 an earthquake opened a crack in a wall and water seeped in. The windows meant to admit natural light caused the vault to heat up in the intense tropical sun. The opening of the national park in 1916 (at the urging of Thurston) brought more visitors to bother the scientists, but also park rangers who would take over public lectures.
Hawaiian Volcano Observatory | History
The Hawaii Center for Volcanology was a cooperative effort between the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory of the United States Geological Survey, and the Center for the Study of Active Volcanoes at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. The loosely organized cooperative was created in 1992 to "bring together experts from around the state of Hawaii so that we might better understand these magical mountains of fire", and consists of approximately 80 scientists. Its site is maintained by members of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology staff, even though it is no longer in operation.
Hawaii Center for Volcanology | Introduction
One of the earliest and most important surveyors of Kīlauea was James Dwight Dana, who, staying with the missionary Titus Coan, studied the island's volcanoes in detail for decades first-hand. Dana visited Kīlauea's summit and described it in detail in 1840. After publishing a summary paper in 1852, he directed a detailed geological study of the island in 1880 and 1881 but did not consider Kīlauea a separate volcano, instead referring to it as a flank vent of Mauna Loa; it was not until another geologist, C. E. Dutton, had elaborated on Dana's research during an 1884 expedition that Kīlauea came to be generally accepted as a separate entity.
Kīlauea | Modern era
On the "Big Island" of Hawaiʻi, Mauna Kea is considered the highest island mountain in the world. While the summit is often covered with snow, the air is extremely dry. Kuiper began looking into the possibility of an observatory on Mauna Kea. After testing, he discovered the low humidity was perfect for infrared signals. He persuaded Hawaiʻi Governor John A. Burns to bulldoze a dirt road to the summit where he built a small telescope on Puu Poliahu, a cinder cone peak. The peak was the second highest on the mountain with the highest peak being holy ground, so Kuiper avoided it.
Mauna Kea Observatories | Origin and background
was discovered on December 9, 2001 by David C. Jewitt, Scott S. Sheppard, and Jan Kleyna observing from the Mauna Kea Observatory.
(148975) 2001 XA255 | Discovery
After testing, he discovered the low humidity was perfect for infrared signals. He persuaded then-Governor John A. Burns to bulldoze a dirt road to the summit where he built a small telescope on Puu Poliahu, a cinder cone peak. The peak was the second highest on the mountain with the highest peak being holy ground, so Kuiper avoided it. Next, Kuiper tried enlisting NASA to fund a larger facility with a large telescope, housing and other needed structures. NASA, in turn decided to make the project open to competition. Professor of physics, John Jefferies of the University of Hawaii placed a bid on behalf of the university.
Opposition to the Mauna Kea Observatories | Background
Like all Hawaiian volcanoes, Mauna Loa was created as the Pacific tectonic plate moved over the Hawaii hotspot in the Earth's underlying mantle. The Hawaii island volcanoes are the most recent evidence of this process that, over 70 million years, has created the -long Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain. The prevailing view states that the hotspot has been largely stationary within the planet's mantle for much, if not all of the Cenozoic Era. However, while the Hawaiian mantle plume is well understood and extensively studied, the nature of hotspots themselves remains fairly enigmatic. Mauna Loa is one of five subaerial volcanoes that make up the island of Hawaiʻi.
Mauna Loa | Setting
He coined the terms "Loa" and "Kea" for the two prominent trends. The Kea trend includes the volcanoes of Kīlauea, Mauna Kea, Kohala, Haleakalā, and West Maui. The Loa trend includes Lōihi, Mauna Loa, Hualālai, Kahoolawe, Lānai, and West Molokai. Dana proposed that the alignment of the Hawaiian Islands reflected localized volcanic activity along a major fissure zone. Dana's "great fissure" theory served as the working hypothesis for subsequent studies until the mid-20th century. Dana's work was followed up by geologist C. E. Dutton's 1884 expedition, who refined and expanded Dana's ideas. Most notably, Dutton established that the island of Hawaii actually harbored five volcanoes, whereas Dana counted three.
Hawaii hotspot | Modern studies
Mauna Loa is a typical shield volcano in form, taking the shape of a long, broad dome extending down to the ocean floor whose slopes are about 12° at their steepest, a consequence of its extremely fluid lava. The shield-stage lavas that built the enormous main mass of the mountain are tholeiitic basalts, like those of Mauna Kea, created through the mixing of primary magma and subducted oceanic crust. Mauna Loa's summit hosts three overlapping pit craters arranged northeast-southwest, the first and last roughly in diameter and the second an oblong feature; together these three craters make up the summit caldera Mokuʻāweoweo, so named for the Hawaiian ʻāweoweo fish ("Priacanthus meeki"), purportedly due to the resemblance of its eruptive fires to the coloration of the fish.
Mauna Loa | Structure
In February 1907 he reported on the eruptions of Mauna Loa to the Washington D. C. newspaper "The Evening Star", with a detailed scientific history of volcanic eruptions in Hawaii. Several months later when a debate arose over the anticipated decline of the Hawaiian atoll Laysan, when some believed it was in the process of sinking into the ocean, Bishop provided a geological history of the atoll to "The Hawaiian Star".
Sereno Edwards Bishop | Scientific observations
As principal investigator of the Hawaii Scientific Drilling Project (HSDP), DePaolo and coworkers sampled the flank of Mauna Kea volcano to a depth of several kilometers. Major findings included a determination of the geochemical structure of the Hawaiian mantle plume [10]. DePaolo’s recent research provides a framework for understanding the partitioning of stable isotopes during mineral growth, with a focus on isotopes of calcium [11].
Donald J. DePaolo | Major contributions
Green was fascinated by the volcanoes in the Hawaiian islands. By 1855 he wrote a series of articles on local geology in the "Sandwich Islands Monthly" newspaper of Abraham Fornander. His ideas on the formation of the earth, based on the nebular hypothesis of Pierre-Simon Laplace, shocked the local conservatives who literally believed in creation according to Genesis. In 1857 he published an article in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal based on the theory of Jean-Baptiste Élie de Beaumont. In 1859 he went on expeditions to view the erupting Mauna Loa and nearby Kīlauea and Hualālai on Hawaii island. He hosted the adventurer Isabella Bird when she came to visit, and gave her a tour of the volcanoes.
William Lowthian Green | Geology
Mokuʻāweoweo's caldera floor lies between beneath its rim and it is only the latest of several calderas that have formed and reformed over the volcano's life. It was created between 1,000 and 1,500 years ago by a large eruption from Mauna Loa's northeast rift zone, which emptied out a shallow magma chamber beneath the summit and collapsed it into its present form. Additionally, two smaller pit craters lie southwest of the caldera, named Lua Hou (New Pit) and Lua Hohonu (Deep Pit). Mauna Loa's summit is also the focal point for its two prominent rift zones, marked on the surface by well-preserved, relatively recent lava flows (easily seen in satellite imagery) and linearly arranged fracture lines intersected by cinder and splatter cones.
Mauna Loa | Structure
From one of his earliest papers describing the eruption of Mount Azuma in 1893 to his death, Omori studied Japanese volcanos. He described several types of volcanic earthquakes from data obtained at regular eruptions of Mount Asama in central Japan, the 1910 Mount Usu eruption and the 12 January 1914 eruption of Sakurajima. At the latter two eruptions, his warnings to the population prevented greater loss of life. After meeting Thomas Jaggar of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was planning a volcanic observatory on the Big Island of Hawaii, Omori designed the foundations and seismograph emplacement for the Whitney Laboratory of Seismology, building 29 near Volcano House, now part of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, state historic site 10-52-5506 and National Register of Historic Places site 74000292, added 24 July 1974.
Fusakichi Omori | Volcanic seismicity
The United States Exploring Expedition led by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes was tasked with a vast survey of the Pacific Ocean starting in 1838. In September 1840 they arrived in Honolulu, where repairs to the ships took longer than expected. Wilkes decided to spend the winter in Hawaii and take the opportunity to explore its volcanoes while waiting for better weather to continue the expedition. King Kamehameha III assigned American medical missionary Dr. Gerrit P. Judd to the expedition as a translator. Wilkes sailed to Hilo on the island of Hawaiʻi and decided to climb Mauna Loa first, since it looked easier than Mauna Kea.
Mauna Loa | Wilkes expedition
The Reserve was established in 1968, and is leased by the State of Hawaiʻi's Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR). The University of Hawaiʻi manages the site and leases land to several multi-national facilities, which have invested more than $2 billion in science and technology. The lease expires in 2033 and after that 40 of 45 square kilometers (25 of 28 square miles) revert to the state of Hawaii.
Mauna Kea Observatories | Management
It was established in October 2006 by the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA) to examine cosmic microwave background radiation.
Mauna Loa | Observatories
Although "white mountain" is a translation in the Hawaiian language of the name Mauna Kea, the other main peak on the island of Hawaii, snow often covers Mauna Loa in winter as well. Reverend Kaiseki Kodama arrived in 1918 and started construction of the current temple in 1920. On May 27, 1921, a Buddha image was enshrined in the main hall in a dedication ceremony. The temple is a blend of traditional Japanese architectural forms adapted to local Hawaiian building methods. It was designed by first-generation immigrant (Issei) Yoshisuke Sasaki who owned a store nearby in Keauhou, and constructed by head carpenter Teruyoshi Ikenouchi and others.
Daifukuji Soto Zen Mission | History
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.
Mauna Loa | Introduction
Thurston commissioned a cyclorama of Kīlauea which he displayed in his travels to the mainland, including the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 and the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894 in San Francisco. Thurston eventually made peace with George Lycurgus, who had been an insurgent against Thurston's government, and sold him the Volcano House in 1902. He also became friends with early volcanologist Dr. Thomas Jaggar in 1909 and raised money to fund the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory in 1912. He used his newspaper to promote the national park idea and convinced the territorial legislature to fund a group of congressmen to visit Haleakalā and Kīlauea in 1907.
Lorrin A. Thurston | Business
Following World War I he called for government restrictions on Japanese-language schools, legislation that was ruled unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court. Thurston put out a special edition to support the fight to ban billboards in Hawaii. He worked with Wallace Rider Farrington and Alexander Hume Ford to hold a world conference of newspaper editors. He was also a volcano enthusiast, starting in his childhood exploring Haleakalā on Maui. He would act as an informal tour guide for visitors to the summit, and used oral history to estimate the time of its last eruption. In 1891, he bought and expanded the Volcano House hotel at the rim of the active Kīlauea volcano on the island of Hawaii.
Lorrin A. Thurston | Business
Ancient Hawaiians were the first to recognize the increasing age and weathered state of the volcanoes to the north as they progressed on fishing expeditions along the islands. The volatile state of the Hawaiian volcanoes and their constant battle with the sea was a major element in Hawaiian mythology, embodied in Pele, the deity of volcanoes. After the arrival of Europeans on the island, in 1880–1881 James Dwight Dana directed the first formal geological study of the hotspot's volcanics, confirming the relationship long observed by the natives. The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory was founded in 1912 by volcanologist Thomas Jaggar, initiating continuous scientific observation of the islands.
Hawaii hotspot | Introduction
Eruptions on Mauna Loa are almost always preceded and accompanied by prolonged episodes of seismic activity, the monitoring of which was the primary and often only warning mechanism in the past and which remains viable today. Seismic stations have been maintained on Hawaiʻi since the Observatory's inception, but these were concentrated primarily on Kīlauea, with coverage on Mauna Loa improving only slowly through the 20th century. Following the invention of modern monitoring equipment, the backbone of the present-day monitoring system was installed on the volcano in the 1970s. Mauna Loa's July 1975 eruption was forewarned by more than a year of seismic unrest, with the HVO issuing warnings to the general public from late 1974; the 1984 eruption was similarly preceded by as much as three years of unusually high seismic activity, with volcanologists predicting an eruption within two years in 1983.
Mauna Loa | Monitoring
It is sometimes reported that the missionary Joseph Goodrich reached the summit around this time, but he never claimed this himself, though he did summit Mauna Kea and describe Mokuʻāweoweo with the aid of another telescope.
Mauna Loa | European summiting attempts
Lady Franklin was a guest during her search for her husband, the lost explorer Sir John Franklin. Mark Twain was a guest on his 1866 visit. Lyman became a judge, first a district magistrate in Kaū in 1867. However, a series of disasters struck the otherwise quiet bucolic area in 1868. Letters to his brother David Brainerd Lyman (1840–1914) describe a massive eruption of Mauna Loa on their ranch accompanied by a series of earthquakes from March 27 to March 31. His eyewitness observations, sometimes called the "best account" of the events, has been used by scientists for many years.
Frederick S. Lyman | Life
He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and received his BS degree in 1949 and his MS in 1951. He continued his graduate studies at the Colorado School of Mines and received his DS in 1953 on the geology of the Independence Range in northern Elko County, Nevada. He worked for Bethlehem Steel in Venezuela 1949–50), New World Exploration Company (1951–54), University of Illinois (1954), Dartmouth College (1954–79) and Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (1979–84). He moved to California in 1984. He established the Center for the Study of Active Volcanoes (CSAV) at the University of Hawaii at Hilo in 1989. He was president of the International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior (IAVCEI, 1975–79).
Robert W. Decker | Life
In 1997, scientists from the University of Hawaiʻi installed an ocean bottom observatory on the summit of Lōʻihi Seamount. The submarine observatory was nicknamed HUGO, (Hawaiʻi Undersea Geological Observatory). HUGO was connected to the shore, away, by a fiber optic cable. It was designed to give scientists real-time seismic, chemical and visual data about the state of Lōʻihi, which had by then become an international laboratory for the study of undersea volcanism. The cable that provided HUGO with power and communications broke in April 1998, effectively shutting it down. The observatory was recovered from the seafloor in 2002.
Lōʻihi Seamount | HUGO (Hawaii Undersea Geological Observatory)
The island of Hawaiʻi is built from five separate shield volcanoes that erupted somewhat sequentially, one overlapping the other. These are (from oldest to youngest): Geological evidence from exposures of old surfaces on the south and west flanks of Mauna Loa led to the proposal that two ancient volcanic shields (named Ninole and Kulani) were all but buried by the younger Mauna Loa. Geologists now consider these "outcrops" to be part of the earlier building of Mauna Loa. Because Mauna Loa and Kīlauea are active volcanoes, the island of Hawaii is still growing. Between January 1983 and September 2002, lava flows added to the island.
Hawaii (island) | Volcanism
At 1:25 a.m., a military satellite recorded a strong infrared signal from the summit of Mauna Loa, indicating that the eruption was underway. Within just a few minutes, people throughout Hawaii island were reporting an intense red glow above the volcano. Eruptive fissures migrated rapidly down the southwest rift zone to the elevation and across the southern half of Moku‘āweoweo (flow A on map). By 4:00 a.m., lava fountains extended across the northeast half of Moku‘āweoweo and into the upper reaches of the northeast rift zone (flow B on map). At 10:30 a.m., intense steam emissions began along a fracture long farther down the northeast rift zone between the elevation, but no eruptive fissure formed in this area.
1984 eruption of Mauna Loa | Eruption
In 1954 he founded the W. M. Keck Foundation, one of the largest philanthropic foundations in the United States. The organization has funded the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii and the Keck School of Medicine at USC. His foundation provided $70 million of the $87 million cost of the Keck Telescope on the summit of Hawaii's Mauna Kea volcano, which upon its start of construction in 1990, was to be the largest astronomical telescope in the world.
William Myron Keck | Philanthropy
Mauna Loa is a volcano in Hawaii. Mauna Loa may also refer to:
Mauna Loa (disambiguation) | Introduction
From 1883 to 1885 it was owned by the Oliver T. Shipman family. In 1891, a group led by Honolulu businessman and politician Lorrin A. Thurston (grandson of 1820s missionaries Asa and Lucy Goodale Thurston) acquired the Volcano House and Peter Lee's hotels. The business was so successful that a two-story addition became the main part of the hotel, adding 10 - 12 additional guest rooms, an observation tower, and a larger dining hall, using the 1877 structure as a wing. Thurston commissioned a cyclorama of Kīlauea which he displayed in his travels to the mainland, including the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 and the California Midwinter International Exposition of 1894 in San Francisco.
Volcano House | The 1877 structure
This led the Department of Land and Natural Resources to prepare an initial management plan, drafted in 1977 and supplemented in 1980. In January 1982, the UH Board of Regents approved a plan to support the continued development of scientific facilities at the site. In 1998, were transferred from the observatory lease to supplement the Mauna Kea Ice Age Reserve. The 1982 plan was replaced in 2000 by an extension designed to serve until 2020: it instituted an Office of Mauna Kea Management, designated for astronomy, and shifted the remaining to "natural and cultural preservation". This plan was further revised to address concern expressed in the Hawaiian community that a lack of respect was being shown toward the cultural values of the mountain.
Mauna Kea | Summit observatories
The site was an enclosure surrounded by a number of stone cairns, up to four meters high and seven meters in diameter. It is unusual to be built so far inland, on the high and dry plateau between Mauna Loa and Hualālai. In the 19th century the site was built into a corral, but parts remain intact. The Judd Trail was begun in 1849 to create a direct route between Kailua and Hilo near the site, but trail completion was abandoned after the Mauna Loa eruption of 1859 crossed the route. Otherwise the area, and elevation of over , is not easily accessed today.
Ahu A ʻUmi Heiau | Introduction
The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory was established on the rim of the Kīlauea Caldera in 1912. Eruptions from the Kīlauea Caldera have taken place in 1982, 1975, 1974, 1971, 1921, 1919, 1918 and possibly in 1820 and 1790.
Kīlauea Caldera | Introduction
Hawaii Volcanoes National Park covers the summit and the southeastern flank of the volcano, and also incorporates Kīlauea, a separate volcano.
Mauna Loa | Introduction
When Voight began research at Mount Merapi in Java, Indonesia, in 1988, it was largely unknown to volcanologists. It had been omitted in the Smithsonian Institution's 1981 publication "Volcanoes of the World", despite being densely populated, having close to a million people on its slopes as of 1996. Voight set up meters to record movement within the volcano, and educated local scientists on volcanic monitoring. In July 1989, he obtained a $250,000 grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Natural and Manmade Hazard Mitigation for his proposal to predict eruptions at Merapi. After his funding ran out, he temporarily abandoned his research.
Barry Voight | Later studies
Ancient Hawaiian religious practice holds that the five volcanic peaks of the island are sacred, and regards Mauna Loa, the largest of them all, with great admiration; but what mythology survives today consists mainly of oral accounts from the 18th century first compiled in the 19th. Most of these stories agree that the Hawaiian volcano goddess, Pele, resides in Halemaʻumaʻu on Kilauea; however a few place her home at Mauna Loa's summit caldera Mokuʻāweoweo, and the mythos in general associates her with all volcanic activity on the island. Regardless, Kīlauea's lack of a geographic outline and strong volcanic link to Mauna Loa led to it being considered an offshoot of Mauna Loa by the Ancient Hawaiians, meaning much of the mythos now associated with Kīlauea was originally directed at Mauna Loa proper as well.
Mauna Loa | Pre-contact
Six large vent structures eventually formed in this area around the active vents. By daybreak on March 26, these vents were feeding lava to a fast-moving flow (flow E on map) that had advanced to the northeast and three less active, shorter flows (flows D on map) that were advancing east toward Kulani Prison. The prison was put on alert because the shorter lava flows were as close as to the prison. These flows, however, stopped advancing within 48 hours and never crossed the Powerline Road. The fast-moving flow (flow E on map) advanced as a relatively narrow, channelized ‘a‘ā lava flow.
1984 eruption of Mauna Loa | Eruption
Larry Kimura is a professor of the Hawaiian language and Hawaiian studies at the University of Hawaii, Hilo in the Ka Haka ʻUla O Keʻelikōlani, College of Hawaiian Language. Kimura has been an advocate for the preservation of the Hawaiian language, and was a co-founder of ʻAha Pūnana Leo. Astronomers consulted with Kimura to create Hawaiian names for the first observed interstellar asteroid, ʻOumuamua, the first imaged black hole, M87*, and other notable objects discovered or imaged from Hawaii.
Larry Kimura | Introduction
It is even more poorly known than "N. wekiuicola", but appears to be in less danger since the summit of Mauna Loa is not under threat of development. Although it receives a large number of hikers, the area is largely made up of rocky lava rather than loose cinder, and is less vulnerable to human influence.
Nysius wekiuicola | Conservation
After arriving in Honolulu, they were assigned to work at the mission in Hilo under Reverend Joseph Goodrich. The Scottish botanist and explorer David Douglas stayed with the Lymans between his historic climb to the summit of Mauna Loa, and his death exploring Mauna Kea in 1834. Mrs. Lyman made a note in her diary about the unusual customs of drinking hot coffee, tea, and "English dinners". Sarah Joiner Lyman's journal recorded earthquakes felt in Hilo and volcanic eruptions of Kilauea and Mauna Loa. It was used as an informative record on the frequency and strength of tremors and of volcanic activity for subsequent researchers.
David Belden Lyman | Hilo
No unusual activity was noted on the Mauna Loa seismograms during the early evening of July 5; seismicity was at relatively low levels. At 23:18 HST, however, seismic alarms, signifying prolonged high-amplitude volcanic tremor, were activated in homes of Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) staff. The tremor had been first recorded by three seismometers near Moku‘āweoweo at 22:51 HST. Staff reached HVO at 23:30 HST and saw that harmonic tremor was being recorded on all Mauna Loa and Kīlauea seismographs. Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park and civil defense authorities were alerted to the imminent probability of a Mauna Loa eruption.
1975 eruption of Mauna Loa | Precursors
A summit shelter was built with some of the stones from Wilkes' camp site and mortar in 1934. In 1916 Mokuʻāweoweo was included in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, and a new trail was built directly from park headquarters at Kīlauea, an even more direct route than the one taken by Wilkes. This trail, arriving at the summit from the east via Red Hill, became the preferred route due to its easier access and gentler slope. The historic ʻAinapō Trail fell into disuse, and was reopened in the 1990s. A third modern route to the summit is from the Saddle Road up to the Mauna Loa Observatory which is at elevation a few miles north of Mokuʻāweoweo and the North Pit trail.
Mauna Loa | Today
In Honolulu, the governor and legislature, enthusiastic about the development, set aside an even larger area for the observatory after the initial project, causing opposition on the Big Island, in the city of Hilo. Native Hawaiians (kānaka ʻōiwi) believed the entire site was sacred and that developing the mountain, even for science, would spoil the area. Environmentalists were concerned about rare native bird populations and other citizens of Hilo were concerned about the sight of the domes from the city. Using town hall meetings, Jefferies was able to overcome opposition by weighing the economic advantage and prestige the island would receive.
Mauna Kea Observatories | Opposition and protests
Between 11,000 and 8,000 years ago, activity was more intense than it is today. However, Mauna Loa's overall rate of growth has probably begun to slow over the last 100,000 years, and the volcano may in fact be nearing the end of its tholeiitic basalt shield-building phase.
Mauna Loa | Prehistoric eruptions
Mauna Kea last erupted 6,000 to 4,000 years ago and is now considered dormant. The peak is about higher than Mauna Loa, its more massive neighbor. In Hawaiian religion, the peaks of the island of Hawaii are sacred. An ancient law allowed only high-ranking aliʻi to visit its peak. Ancient Hawaiians living on the slopes of Mauna Kea relied on its extensive forests for food, and quarried the dense volcano-glacial basalts on its flanks for tool production. When Europeans arrived in the late 18th century, settlers introduced cattle, sheep and game animals, many of which became feral and began to damage the volcano's ecological balance.
Mauna Kea | Introduction
Strainmeters, by contrast, are relatively rare. The Observatory also maintains two gas detectors at Mokuʻāweoweo, Mauna Loa's summit caldera, as well as a publicly accessible live webcam and occasional screenings by interferometric synthetic aperture radar imaging.
Mauna Loa | Monitoring
By the early 19th century, they had escaped confinement and roamed the island freely, greatly damaging its ecosystem. In 1809 John Palmer Parker arrived and befriended Kamehameha I, who put him in charge of cattle management on the island. With an additional land grant in 1845, Parker established Parker Ranch on the northern slope of Mauna Kea, a large cattle ranch that is still in operation today. Settlers to the island burned and cut down much of the native forest for sugarcane plantations and houses. The Saddle Road, named for its crossing of the saddle-shaped plateau between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, was completed in 1943, and eased travel to Mauna Kea considerably.
Mauna Kea | Modern era
After studying photos for NASA's Apollo program that contained greater detail than any ground-based telescope, Gerard Kuiper began seeking an arid site for infrared studies. While he first began looking in Chile, he also made the decision to perform tests in the Hawaiian Islands. Tests on Maui's Haleakalā were promising but the mountain was too low in the inversion layer and often covered by clouds. On the "Big Island" of Hawaii, Mauna Kea is considered the highest island mountain in the world. While the summit is often covered with snow the air itself is extremely dry. Kuiper began looking into the possibility of an observatory on Mauna Kea.
Opposition to the Mauna Kea Observatories | Background
The reserve was established in 1981. In 1998, the area leased to the Mauna Kea Observatory (called the Kea Science Reserve) was modified to exclude the Ice Age reserve. Another small parcel surrounding the rocky cinder cone called Puu Pōhaku at , contains a rare example of permafrost in the tropics. A 2004 study found the rare wēkiu bug ("Nysius wekiuicola") in the reserve.
Mauna Kea Ice Age Reserve | Location
The 1975 eruption of Mauna Loa was a short-lived Hawaiian eruption that followed 25 years of quiescence at the Hawaiian volcano Mauna Loa. The eruption began just before midnight on July 5 and involved fissures extending across the length of Moku‘āweoweo, Mauna Loa's summit caldera, and into the upper ends of the volcano's northeast and southwest rift zones. After only 6 hours, activity in Moku‘āweoweo and on the southwest rift zone ended, but lava fountaining continued along the northeast rift zone until 7:30 p.m. on July 6, when all activity ceased.
1975 eruption of Mauna Loa | Introduction
However, because the earthquakes were oriented east–west (the direction of the volcanic fault) and there was no volcanic tremor in seismometers distant from the seamount, Macdonald attributed the earthquake to faulting rather than a volcanic eruption. Geologists suspected the seamount could be an active undersea volcano, but without evidence the idea remained speculative. The volcano was largely ignored after the 1952 event, and was often mislabeled as an "older volcanic feature" in subsequent charts. Geologist Kenneth O. Emery is credited with naming the seamount in 1955, describing the long and narrow shape of the volcano as "Lōʻihi". The Hawaiian word lōʻihi means "long".
Lōʻihi Seamount | Early work
These factors historically made Mauna Kea an excellent spot for stargazing. In the early 1960s, the Hawaii Island Chamber of Commerce encouraged astronomical development of Mauna Kea, as economic stimulus; this coincided with University of Arizona astronomer Gerard Kuiper's search for sites to use newly improved detectors of infrared light. Site testing by Kuiper's assistant Alika Herring in 1964 confirmed the summit's outstanding suitability. An intense three-way competition for NASA funds to construct a large telescope began between Kuiper, Harvard University, and the University of Hawaii (UH), which only had experience in solar astronomy. This culminated in funds being awarded to the "upstart" UH proposal.
Mauna Kea | Summit observatories
The prison that had supplied laborers was replaced by the Kīlauea Military Camp. In 1919, Jaggar convinced the National Weather Service to take over operations at the observatory. In 1924, the observatory was taken over by the United States Geological Survey and it has been run by the USGS ever since (except for a brief period during the Great Depression, when the observatory was run by the National Park Service). When the Volcano House hotel burned to the ground in 1940, the old building was torn down (although the instruments in the vault continued to be used until 1961).
Hawaiian Volcano Observatory | History
The eruption started as a fissure between two pit craters, Āloi and Alae, where the Mauna Ulu shield would eventually form. Both pāhoehoe and aā lava erupted from the volcano. Early on, fountains of lava burst out as much as 540 meters (1772 ft) high. In early 1973, an earthquake occurred that caused Kīlauea to briefly stop erupting near the original Mauna Ulu site and instead erupt near the craters Pauahi and Hiiaka.
Kīlauea | 1952 to 1982
The oldest volcano on the island, Kohala, is more than a million years old, and Kīlauea, the youngest, is believed to be between 300,000 and 600,000 years of age. Lōʻihi Seamount on the island's flank is even younger, but has yet to breach the surface of the Pacific Ocean. At 1 million to 700,000 years of age, Mauna Loa is the second youngest of the five volcanoes on the island, making it the third youngest volcano in the Hawaiian – Emperor seamount chain, a chain of shield volcanoes and seamounts extending from Hawaii to the Kuril–Kamchatka Trench in Russia. Following the pattern of Hawaiian volcano formation, Mauna Loa would have started as a submarine volcano, gradually building itself up through underwater eruptions of alkali basalt before emerging from the sea through a series of surtseyan eruptions about 400,000 years ago.
Mauna Loa | Setting
By mid-afternoon, eruptive activity began to decrease at the uppermost vents between . At 4:41 p.m., a new fissure opened up at the elevation. This fissure rapidly migrated both uprift and downrift, so that by 6:30 p.m., a line of lava fountains slightly longer than was active. Eventually the fissure system condensed to four centers of activity with fountains up to 50 m (165 ft) high. Four parallel flows (flows D on map) moved down the northeast flank at speeds as fast as per hour. All vents uprift from these new ones quickly became inactive and the eruptive activity was confined to these vents for the next three weeks.
1984 eruption of Mauna Loa | Eruption
On the Island of Hawaii, geologists have long recognized deposits formed by glaciers on Mauna Kea during recent ice ages. The latest work indicates that deposits of three glacial episodes since 150,000 to 200,000 years ago are preserved on the volcano. Glacial moraines on the volcano formed about 70,000 years ago and from about 40,000 to 13,000 years ago. If glacial deposits were formed on Mauna Loa, they have long since been buried by younger lava flows.
Last Glacial Maximum | North America
The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) is an agency of the U.S. Geological Survey, with temporary offices located in Hilo on the Island of Hawaii. The former volcano observatory clifftop facility and HVO offices, closed due to structural damage in 2018, is located at Uwekahuna Bluff on the rim of Kīlauea Caldera. The observatory staff and equipment monitors four active Hawaiian volcanoes: Kīlauea, Mauna Loa, Hualālai, and Haleakalā. Because Kīlauea and Mauna Loa are significantly more active than Hualālai and Haleakalā, much of the observatory's research is concentrated on the former two mountains. HVO has a worldwide reputation as a leader in the study of active volcanism.
Hawaiian Volcano Observatory | Introduction
In Honolulu, the governor and legislature, enthusiastic about the development, set aside an even larger area for the observatory causing opposition in the main city of the Big Island, Hilo. Native kānaka ʻōiwi believed the entire site was sacred and that developing the mountain, even for science, would spoil the area. Environmentalists were concerned about rare native bird populations and other citizens of Hilo were concerned about the sight of the domes from the city. Using town hall meetings, Jefferies was able to overcome opposition by weighing the economic advantage and prestige the island would receive. There has been substantial opposition to the Mauna Kea observatories that continues to grow.
Opposition to the Mauna Kea Observatories | Expansion renews opposition
The main shield-building stage of volcanism ended about 470,000 years ago. The summit of the shield volcano subsided below sea level between 435,000 and 365,000 years ago. This makes Māhukona the oldest volcano to build Hawaii island, compared to Kohala to the east and Mauna Kea to the east. The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute investigated the area with a remotely controlled submarine in 2001. It was named for the area known as Māhukona, on the shore to the northeast.
Māhukona | Introduction
To have reached its enormous size within its relatively short (geologically speaking) 600,000 to 1,000,000 years of life, Mauna Loa would logically have had to have grown extremely rapidly through its developmental history, and extensive charcoal-based radiocarbon dating (perhaps the most extensive such prehistorical eruptive dating on Earth) has amassed a record of almost two hundred reliably dated extant flows confirming this hypothesis. The oldest exposed flows on Mauna Loa are thought to be the Ninole Hills on its southern flank, subaerial basalt rock dating back approximately 100 to 200 thousand years. They form a terrace against which younger flows have since banked, heavily eroded and incised against its slope in terms of direction; this is believed to be the result of a period of erosion because of a change in the direction of lava flow caused by the volcano's prehistoric slump.
Mauna Loa | Prehistoric eruptions
George David Madeira (October 1836 – January 1922) was a mining engineer and mineralogist who founded the first astronomical observatory in California in the town of Volcano. Madeira arrived with his family from Illinois in Volcano on August 30, 1852. They, like many others, had come in search of gold during the California Gold Rush. He had been interested in astronomy as a child, reporting to have observed a comet in February, 1843. Although his formal education had ended at age 15, he continued to study mathematics from a neighbor, a Methodist minister from British Columbia named Telerand. In 1860, he set up a crude observatory consisting of his telescope (which he had delivered from San Francisco), and a heavy canvas and oilcloth covering.
George Madeira | Introduction
He was also head of the W. M. Keck Foundation set up by his father. The philanthropic foundation has provided substantial funding for numerous science and technology institutions and projects including the Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California, the Keck School of Medicine of USC, the W. M. Keck Earth Science and Mineral Engineering Museum at the University of Nevada, Reno, Howard Keck Hall (Chemistry Building) at Rice University, and the Keck Distinguished Young Scholar Awards program. In 1985, Keck gave $70 million to the California Institute of Technology to fund the design and construction of the Keck I Telescope on the summit of Hawaii's dormant Mauna Kea volcano.
Howard Keck | Philanthropy
A potentially greater hazard at Mauna Loa is a sudden, massive collapse of the volcano's flanks, like the one that struck the volcano's west flank between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago and formed the present-day Kealakekua Bay. Deep fault lines are a common feature on Hawaiian volcanoes, allowing large portions of their flanks to gradually slide downwards and forming structures like the Hilina Slump and the ancient Ninole Hills; large earthquakes could trigger rapid flank collapses along these lines, creating massive landslides and possibly triggering equally large tsunamis. Undersea surveys have revealed numerous landslides along the Hawaiian chain and evidence of two such giant tsunami events: 200,000 years ago, Molokaʻi experienced a tsunami, and 100,000 years ago a megatsunami high struck Lānaʻi.
Mauna Loa | Hazards
After studying photos for NASA's Apollo program that contained greater detail than any ground based telescope, Gerard Kuiper began seeking an arid site for infrared studies. While he first began looking in Chile, he also made the decision to perform tests in the Hawaiian Islands. Tests on Maui's Haleakalā were promising but the mountain was too low in the inversion layer and often covered by clouds. On the "Big Island" of Hawaii, Mauna Kea is considered the highest island mountain in the world, measuring roughly 33,000 feet from the base deep under the Pacific Ocean. While the summit is often covered with snow the air itself is extremely dry.
Thirty Meter Telescope protests | Development of Mauna Kea observatories
Further eruptions occurred in 1879 and then twice in 1880, the latter of which extended into 1881 and came within the present boundaries of the island's largest city, Hilo; however, at the time, the settlement was a shore-side village located further down the volcano's slope, and so was unaffected.
Mauna Loa | Recent history
She soon accepted a job opportunity for a new program and joined the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii where she worked as an assistant and associate astronomer from 1971–1976. While in Hawaii, Wolff spent 17 years contributing to the conversion of Mauna Kea into one of the world's top sites for astronomy. At an elevation of , Mauna Kea is one of the clearest image sites due to its height and dryness. This changed ground-based astronomy and gained the attention of other astronomical organizations, eventually leading to the installation of the Canada-France-Hawaii telescope. Wolff also contributed to the construction of the SOAR 4.1-meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory near La Serena, Chile.
Sidney C. Wolff | PhD and postdoctoral research
In 1912 Omori shipped to Hawaii two instruments, an Omori-type Horizontal Tromometer and a seismograph, to be placed on the specially built foundations. A year later, two more Bosch-Omori seismographs were donated to the HVO by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Fusakichi Omori | Volcanic seismicity
Since 1958, initially under the direction of Charles Keeling, followed by his son Ralph and later Elmer Robinson, Mauna Loa Observatory (MLO) has been monitoring and collecting data relating to atmospheric change, and is known especially for the continuous monitoring of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO), which is sometimes referred to as the Keeling Curve. The observatory is under the Earth System Research Laboratory which is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). According to the NOAA, Mauna Loa is the world's oldest continuous CO monitoring station, and the world's primary benchmark site for measurement of the gas. The latest observation of CO concentrations from MLO can be found at web sites along with data from other sites and trends at Mauna Loa.
Mauna Loa Observatory | The observatory
Data obtained from the Global Volcanism Program website.
List of Mauna Loa eruptions | Historically-observed eruptions
In 1894 a four-horse stagecoach reduced the travel time from Hilo from two days to six hours. George Lycurgus bought the hotel in 1895 and was associated with it for the next 65 years. The Hawaii Consolidated Railway line to Glenwood opened in 1901, bringing more visitors. Author Jack London stayed in 1907. In 1912, geologist Thomas Jaggar built a scientific observatory adjacent to the porch, used until 1961 by the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. The instruments were housed in an underground vault with massive concrete walls, excavated by laborers from the nearby prison.
Volcano House | The 1877 structure
40 percent of the volcano's surface consists of lavas less than a thousand years old, and 98 percent of lavas less than 10,000 years old. In addition to the summit and rift zones, Mauna Loa's northwestern flank has also been the source of three historical eruptions. The 1843 event was followed by eruptions in 1849, 1851, 1852, and 1855, with the 1855 flows being particularly extensive. 1859 marked the largest of the three historical flows that have been centered on Mauna Loa's northwestern flank, producing a long lava flow that reached the ocean on Hawaii island's west coast, north of Kīholo Bay.
Mauna Loa | Recent history
Lava flows were rapidly advancing to the west and southwest from the southwest rift zone vents. The eruptive fissures extended rapidly northeastward, across North Pit, and into the upper northeast rift zone at 02:25 HST. At 02:45 HST lava from the North Pit vents began cascading into another summit pit crater, Lua Poholo. By 03:15 HST, the lava fountains on the southwest rift zone and within Moku‘āweoweo were waning, and the lava flows moving to the west and southwest had stagnated. Fountains continued to migrate eastward along the northeast rift zone, but by dawn eruptive activity was largely restricted to echelon vents near the northeast rift zone at elevation.
1975 eruption of Mauna Loa | Eruption
Lōʻihi Seamount's first depiction on a map was on Survey Chart 4115, a bathymetric rendering of part of Hawaiʻi compiled by the US Coast and Geodetic Survey in 1940. At the time, the seamount was non-notable, being one of many in the region. A large earthquake swarm first brought attention to it in 1952. That same year, geologist Gordon A. MacDonald hypothesized that the seamount was actually an active submarine shield volcano, similar to the two active Hawaiian volcanoes, Mauna Loa and Kīlauea. Macdonald's hypothesis placed the seamount as the newest volcano in the Hawaiian–Emperor seamount chain, created by the Hawaiʻi hotspot.
Lōʻihi Seamount | Early work
Next, Kuiper tried enlisting NASA to fund a larger facility with a large telescope, housing and other needed structures. NASA, in turn decided to make the project open to competition. Professor of physics, John Jefferies of the University of Hawaii placed a bid on behalf of the university. Jefferies had gained his reputation through observations at Sacramento Peak Observatory. The proposal was for a two-meter telescope to serve both the needs of NASA and the university. While large telescopes are not ordinarily awarded to universities without well-established astronomers, Jefferies and UH were awarded the NASA contract, infuriating Kuiper, who felt that "his mountain" had been "stolen" from "him".
Mauna Kea Observatories | Origin and background
This is because Dana had originally regarded Kīlauea as a flank vent of Mauna Loa, and Kohala as part of Mauna Kea. Dutton also refined others of Dana's observations, and is credited with the naming of 'a'ā and pāhoehoe-type lavas, although Dana had noted a distinction. Stimulated by Dutton's expedition, Dana returned in 1887, and published many accounts of his expedition in the "American Journal of Science". In 1890 he published the most detailed manuscript of its day, and remained the definitive guide to Hawaiian volcanism for decades. 1909 saw the publication of two large volumes which extensively quoted from earlier works now out of circulation.
Hawaii hotspot | Modern studies
A few rustic cabins named Hale Pōhaku (which means "stone house" in the Hawaiian language) were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps on the southern slope of Mauna Kea in the 1930s for hunters and other explorers. A rough jeep trail was built in 1964 under Governor John A. Burns, and a small telescope determined that Mauna Kea would be an ideal place for an astronomical observatory. The Hale Pōhaku area was used as a construction camp for the building of the observatories through the 1970s, and the road realigned in 1975. A permanent complex of buildings was constructed in 1983 known as the Mid-Level Facility.
Onizuka Center for International Astronomy | History
The land was once part of the extensive ranch of William Herbert Shipman. Although ancient Hawaiians knew the molds were from a lava flow, one of the first to propose that they were from former trees was Rufus Anderson Lyman. It was closed in May 2018 due to the eruption of Kīlauea when lava flows approached the park.
Lava Tree State Monument | History
The 115-room building burned to the ground on February 11, 1940 (from a kitchen fire, not a volcanic eruption). The 1877 structure was used again for guests while the new hotel was planned. Lycurgus visited Washington, D.C. to convince powerful friends (many, including President Franklin D. Roosevelt had stayed as guests) to allow him to build an even more elegant hotel on the site of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. A separate visitor's center farther back from the rim was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps. By November 1941 a new building designed by Charles William Dickey (1871–1942) was opened southeast of the original site, at coordinates .
Volcano House | The modern hotel
Mauna Kea Anaina Hou, the Royal Order of Kamehameha I and the Sierra Club, united their opposition to the Keck's proposal of adding six addition outrigger telescopes. In 2003 MKAH sponsored a photography exhibit along with the Royal Order of Kamehameha I, Kahakamaoli Religious Institute, Makaainana Foundation and the Sacred Mountain Society, all Native Hawaiian groups that strongly believe Mauna kea to be a sacred place. Due to a lack of cultural sensitivity with expansion of the observatories, the groups built an altar in 1998 at the summit of the mountain and conduct solstice and equinox ceremonies each year.
Mauna Kea Anaina Hou | Background
Ancient Hawaiians have been present on Hawaiʻi island for about 1,500 years, but they preserved almost no records on volcanic activity on the island, beyond a few fragmentary accounts dating to the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Possible eruptions occurred around 1730 and 1750 and sometime during 1780 and 1803. A June 1832 eruption was witnessed by a missionary on Maui, but the between the two islands and lack of apparent geological evidence have cast this testimony in doubt. Thus the first entirely confirmed historically witnessed eruption was a January 1843 event; since that time Mauna Loa has erupted 32 times.
Mauna Loa | Recent history
At 23:42 HST, a small glow was noted above the southwest end of Moku‘āweoweo. Within one minute the glow extended across the entire summit area and a fume cloud more than high was illuminated with a bright orange-red glow from the unseen lava fountains on the caldera floor. A light airplane with two HVO staff members aboard reached the summit area on July 6 at 01:48 HST; a line of lava fountains high crossed the entire floor of Moku‘āweoweo at this time and extended about down the southwest rift zone. Lava cascades high were pouring into three pit craters on the upper southwest rift zone.
1975 eruption of Mauna Loa | Eruption
In 1998, were transferred from the observatory lease to supplement the Mauna Kea Ice Age Reserve. The 1982 plan was replaced in 2000 by an extension designed to serve until 2020: it instituted an Office of Mauna Kea Management, designated for astronomy, and shifted the remaining to "natural and cultural preservation". This plan was further revised to address concern expressed in the Hawaiian community that a lack of respect was being shown toward the cultural value the mountain embodied to the region's indigenous people.
Mauna Kea Observatories | Origin and background