Report from South Kona

Mauna Kea , Hawaii

Traveling home thru the Volcano National park this weekend all of Mauna Loa was visible . Below from the Nat. Park website .

Rising gradually to more than 4 km above sea level, Mauna Loa is the largest volcano on our planet. Its long submarine flanks descend to the sea floor an additional 5 km, and the sea floor in turn is depressed by Mauna Loa’s great mass another 8 km. This makes the volcano’s summit about 17 km (56,000 ft) above its base! The enormous volcano covers half of the Island of Hawai`i and by itself amounts to about 85 percent of all the other Hawaiian Islands combined.

Mauna Loa is among Earth’s most active volcanoes, having erupted 33 times since its first well-documented historical eruption in 1843. Its most recent eruption was in 1984. Mauna Loa is certain to erupt again .

Thin strands of volcanic glass drawn out from molten lava have long been called Pele’s hair, named for Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of volcanoes. A single strand, with a diameter of less than 0.5 mm, may be as long as 2 m. The strands are formed by the stretching or blowing-out of molten basaltic glass from lava, usually from lava fountains, lava cascades, and vigorous lava flows (for example, as pahoehoe lava plunges over a small cliff and at the front of an `a`a flow). Pele’s hair is often carried high into the air during fountaining, and wind can blow the glass threads several tens of kilometers from a vent. Hundreds of strands of Pele’s hair intertwined on the surface of a pahoehoe flow at Kilauea Volcano, Hawai`i. The glass strands were erupted from Mauna Ulu, a shield that formed on the east rift of Kilauea between 1969 and 1974.

Small bits of molten lava in fountains can cool quickly and solidify into glass particles shaped like spheres or tear drops called Pele’s tears, named after Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of volcanoes. They are jet black in color and are often found on one end of a strand of Pele’s hair. Assorted shapes of Pele’s tears collected a few kilometers downwind from Mauna Ulu from along the Hilina Pali Road on Kilauea Volcano, Hawai`i. U.S. dime for scale in lower right.