Hobbies And Interests
Mauna Loa
In 1780, Archibald Menzies, a surgeon and naturalist from Scotland, was the first scientist to provide a scientific record for one of Mauna Loa's eruptions. He also made the first successful ascent to the summit in February of 1794. He climbed to 13,680 feet. In 1868, the Mauna Loa volcanic irruption caused the largest known earthquake in Hawaii. In the early 1900s, Andriha Mohorovicic, a Croatian seismologist, measured the total inverted cone shape of the volcano's base using a technique called the Mohorovicic discontinuity. It uses seismic waves to measure how much the volcano depresses the sea floor. This proved the volcano has a total height in 56,000 feet, making it the largest in the world.
Lo'ihi
Lo'ihi is the youngest of Hawaii's volcanoes and is just off the southeastern coast of the Big Island. The volcano is submerged by water, with no visible marker above sea level. It was discovered in 1955 by Kenneth O. Emery, a marine geologist, who detected radio signals that bounced off the lava rock mound on the seafloor. In 1972, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory recorded a large earthquake swarm on Lo'ihi. This led Fred W. Klein, a surveyor for the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, to discover that Lo'ihi was an active volcano.
Hualalai
Hualalai is a post-shield stage volcano on the west side of the island that has been dormant since 1801. It is expected to become active in the next century. The volcano has an offshoot called the Pu'u Wa'awa' ridge, which was last active in the mid- to late 1800s. Scientists have drilled holes in the youngest lava flows and discovered the samples contain a high rate of trachyte. This means that the viscosity of the volcano is high and that any lava flow from the Hualalai volcano would flow extremely slowly down hill, at approximately one-tenth the speed of traditional lava.
Kilauea
Kilauea was once believed to be a second mouth for the larger Mauna Loa. A series of explorations and scientific discoveries, made between 1950 and the turn of the century, however, have proven that it has its own magma core. This makes it a completely independent volcanic structure. Kilauea has been continuously erupting since 1983, making it the most active volcano in the world. As of 2010, this continuous flow of lava had extended the surface of the Hawaiian island 93 acres into the ocean. In 1924, the most violent eruption on record spewed 10-ton boulders over two-thirds of a mile.
Haleakala
Haleakala is the only one of the large volcanoes not located on Hawaii's main island. It is on the east side of Maui. It was first discovered by the explorer James Cook in 1778. He only observed the island and the volcano from the ocean because he could not find a safe place to land his ships. The volcano's summit is 10,033 feet high. Until recently, it was believed that the volcano last erupted in the 1790s, but recent date testing of the lava base suggests that it was still active in the 1800s.