How can one day be more incredible than the previous day? Well, come with me on my journey through today's JASON Project's adventures. And, I do mean adventures. This was the most active day yet for the volcano. As we were still quite a ways from the site, the sky was aglow with a reddish color. This looked familiar to me, being from Las Vegas; but, then I realized that there was no city around to cause this effect. Could Pu'u O'o be this active? Well, as soon as we rounded the mountain, we could see the answer. Pele was greeting us with spectacular good morning lava flows down the mountainside and beautiful lava falls into the ocean. We were in awe!
We put on our respirators around our necks for safety and took the students that were working in the lava fields (with Dr. Mattox and Dr. Sansone) to the end of the road for the 5:00 a.m. broadcast. (Remember, it was still dark at this hour.) We then saw something really amazing! The lava flow had gone over the road, and the asphalt was on fire!! Can't say that I have ever seen a road on fire before -- have you? Later during the day, the lava crane near this road had to be moved because the conditions were so dangerous. Guess how they moved this heavy piece of equipment? HELICOPTER!! There should be a picture of this soon. You must see this!
The last broadcast was my turn to go into the helicopter for a ride to the
crater. I was a little nervous, because I had never been in a helicopter
before today --- have you? But, I got a special treat. We had to fly to
two places to deliver items to scientists from USGS on the fields and to
pick up Jim, who operates the infrared camera to observe the lava activity
through the steam. Well, when we arrived at the crater, Pele put on a show
for me!! At first, there were no clouds of steam, and I could see the
boiling lava -- gases pushing lava to the surface in big bubbles and
spilling lava over the thin crust of cooled lava in the crater. The crust
would break and separate, looking like our crust on Earth with plate
tectonic movements. I could not believe what I saw!! There are no words to
describe the feeling and the experience. Just as if on cue, the steam
covered the crater like a curtain drawing closed from a wonderful
performance. That's when Jim took over with the infrared camera. We could
then see the movement of the lava through the steam. We circled around to
view several vents with lava tubes, and I saw one skylight (a hole in the
crust ) where I could see the lava flowing through under-crust tubes.
Cherry!!!
As I was flying over the lava fields on my way to the crater itself, I noticed areas of rainforest vegetation that had been spared by the downward flow of the lava. These areas were circular, and they reminded me of little islands in a sea of lava. This ties in well with the theme of JASON VI, Island Earth. The theme relates to Hawaii as an island in the Pacific Ocean and Earth as an island in space. Now here was another island. So, think of this..........an island, on an island, on an island. Do you see what I mean?
One more thing before I head for bed. After the broadcasts, we were treated to a tour of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory by the USGS. We got a behind the scene look at the tracking of earthquakes, the computer images of the topography of the islands, and the analysis of the collected gases from the vents in the lava fields. Once again, thank you to the USGS. They have treated us like royalty!!
Signing off now, but please write to any of the students or teachers through e-mail. We love hearing from you ---
Aloha,
Kathy Grimes
JASON VI Home Page
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Gene Carl
Feldman
(gene@seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov)
(301) 286-9428
Todd Carlo Viola,
JASON Foundation for Education
(todd@jason.org)
