Richard Cooper

Gloucester, U.K.



March 9, 1995

Hi

The lava flows from Kilauea have contiued inexoribly along the road towards the broadcast site. for the last few days the flows seemed to have slowed and moved off in the opposite direction. However, on arrival this morning we saw that there had been a sudden increase in the activity and another 50 yards of roadhad been buried. It was a really eerie sensation to see the spot that I had been standing on buried by tons of rock. So much of our perception of rocky landscapes is determined by our experiences of being able to return to the same favourite rockpool at the seaside every year, or that rocky outcrop that serves as a welcome seat or viewpoint on a favourite walk. This is a stark contrast with what we have experienced this week where we have seen quite radical changes over the course of a few short hours.

The road was on fire when we arrived at four for our briefing and the fumes were drifting over the geology site which made the early morning "dark" broadcast out of the question. Having been scheduled for that one as an observer I was quite disappointed. The lava fields in the dark are out of this world; red hot lava oozing through horizontal folds in the rock looking like angry red eyes peeking through slighly open eyelids, and sudden almost unpredictable break-outs prefaced only by the popping and cracking of the brittle glassy surface before welling out in a crimson stream slowing as it cooled into a collision of ropey folds.

As dawn broke the fumes abated and I had the chance to do what I had been secretly wanting to do all week, to use a lava scoop to take a sample of molten lava and put it into cold water to look at the effect on the structure of the rock which is formed as the lava flows into the sea. The rock was inceredibly hot, the results were fascinating and raised a lot of questions which have yet to be answered.

The highlight of the week had to be the helicopter ride to the cone which is producing all this lava. More about that tomorrow!!

Richard Cooper
Teacher Argonaut, United Kingdom

JASON VI Home Page

--------------------------------------------------

JASON Project Logo

JASON Project homepage || Teachers' Guide || Students' Corner || Search

Gene Carl Feldman (gene@seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov) (301) 286-9428
Todd Carlo Viola, JASON Foundation for Education (todd@jason.org)