Pele is mad, Kilauea goes bang!

[Garp]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12662036

Pele is the name for the Hawaiian goddess who is responsible for volcanoes, and she is known to have a vicious temper. When someone or something has made her angry, BOOOOM

Kilauea (kill-a-weigh-a) has been in a constant state of eruption for around 18 years now, mostly just spewing lava out a rim top in varying amounts. It's the worlds most active volcano. Occasionally small changes have occurred with where it's coming from, the routes and all sorts, but for an active volcano its relatively stable. The Lava spews out over the top of the crater and then just runs down to the ocean where it is rapidly cooled by the ocean.

Saturday saw the floor of the main Pu'u o'o (poo-oo o-oh) crater collapse and a new rift open near Napau (Nap-ow) Crater by the Chain of Craters road. Kari and I went out there last October and drove right along the Chain of Craters road, which has now had to be closed whilst the rift stabilises and they wait for the gas levels to settle & subside a bit. Kinda cool and scary at the same time, to know that the groundwork ('scuse the pun) was being done by the lava for such action, right as we were there. Lava has been spewing somewhere between 65-80ft up into the air from the new rift, before starting to make its way down to the ocean. I'm told even experienced volcanologists there are excited and shocked by the changes

http://www.kitv.com/news/27098444/detail.html


There is minimal danger here on Oahu from it, Big Island is about 200 miles South West from here, and our volcano is nicely extinct. They aren't really anticipating any problems for Big Island either. The main danger is just from the elevated sulfuric acid levels in the air (urgh, pesky vog), which isn't so much fun for humans to breath and has been damaging some of the more sensitive crops on Big Island. We should all be good as long as the trade winds continue to blow, which they're doing at the moment after a brief break the other week.

[Pheebs]

Woooow! I know it's not particularly convenient or good for us humans and what not but Mother Nature is pretty awesome!

And can I say, "Pu'u o'o (poo-oo o-oh) crater"... GENIUS name! I reckon the discoverer was stood on top of it and their mate said "Hmmm what do you think we should call it" and just as he said that the discoverer stumbled and toppled calling out "POO OOO Oo OH!"

Haha!

/amuses oneself

[Garp]

Hmm o'o is probably closer to Uh-oh I guess in pronounciation. Hardest thing to learn with reading Hawaiian is its mostly phonetic, and the natural tendency is to over-think it. Just read whats written, and you're laughing ' = glottal stop.

I think of Pu'u O'o as some guy climbing a crater, getting a whiff of the Sulfur dioxide and going "Pooo-oooh", wafting hand under nose, then "Uh oh" as he realises he's not that far from lava.

edit: USGS's pronunciation guide: http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/archive/list.html

[Knipples]

Thought of you two today when I saw this on the news. Hope you aren't near it!

[Jingo]

Mountain did a burp!

[Garp]

Originally Posted by Knipples

Thought of you two today when I saw this on the news. Hope you aren't near it!

Perfectly safe Even folks on Big Island itself are mostly safe too. Wouldn't want to be on the south east of the island particularly, just because I couldn't be certain where the next rift opens. In this case it's actually opened a rift further away from kapaahu (capa a-who , where ca as in car, pa is in part). It's supposed to be in this vicinity

To put it in context as the crow flies, where we are on Oahu is about the same distance from the volcano as London is from Paris.