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January 11, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Flying for Fun

“(Flying) may not be all plain sailing … But the fun of it is worth the price.” (Putnam, The Fun Of It)

Five hundred enjoyed Mrs Putnam’s free lecture through the University Extension Service, University of Hawaiʻi – titled, ‘Flying for Fun.”

It was an interesting subject back then, only a few short years after Charles Lindberg first flew solo over the Atlantic. (She repeated the feat on the fifth anniversary of Lindbergh’s solo flight.)

‘Flying for fun’ (sport aviation) is basically flying for some purpose other than transportation or business (relaxation, hobby, competition, racing or thrill.) (CAP)

“I attempted to fly across the Atlantic ocean for my own person satisfaction. My flight added nothing to aviation. Literally hundreds of persons have crossed the Atlantic by aircraft, and one flight adds little to the starting sum total.”

“If my flight interested women to learn to fly as pilots or to fly as passengers on air lines, or to let their husbands and children fly as passengers, or to let their children embark on careers aeronautical engineers, then I think that my flight was worth while.” (Mrs Putnam, Rockford Morning Star, 02-15-1935; Genealogy Trails)

“A charming personality combined with a graciousness and ability in speaking to an audience as well as to the individual are paradoxically the qualities that the pioneering American woman flyer … possesses. In addition to these, her love for beauty is so real that she believes the lure of flying is the lure of beauty.”

She “described vividly and picturesquely her flight over the Pacific ocean, adding to her gift for pantomime a power of description and a true sense of humor that struck an immediate response in her audience.”

She insists “that the only reason for the flights was her own wish to fly. In this connection she said, ‘Women must often do for themselves what men have already done, and I look for the day to come when individual aptitude instead of sex will be the criterion for holding any job.’” (Daily Illini, March 22, 1935)

“I have long been interested in the comparative skills between the sexes. I have watched the flawless coordination of women champion drivers and I have watched the control and precision of women factory hands as they do work no man does (whether this should be ‘can do’ or not, I do not know)…”

“… and I wonder why the creatures who can with training perform these diverse tasks, and a hundred others, so excellently, should be balked by a contraption with an engine and four wheels or one with an engine and a couple of wings.” (Putnam to Wiggam, 1932)

She was rarely out of public view. In the many images of her after 1928, she appears as the epitome of grace and poise. During the years that America was in the grip of the Great Depression, she provided the nation with a sense of hope and optimism about its future.

After discovering the joy of flying, she came to see the airplane as her one true home. There she could escape, challenge herself, break records, and inspire others who longed to lead independent lives.

Although she was a vocal advocate for women’s rights and the future of aviation, she preferred being in the cockpit of a plane to anywhere else. She seemed to be happiest when flying an airplane. (Smithsonian)

At 4:44 pm, January 11, 1935, Putnam took off from Wheeler Field on Oʻahu for Oakland, California on a trans-Pacific flight never made solo before.

It was just one year prior that Commander M. Ginnis led his flight of six seaplanes from the West Coast to Hawaii. Now a woman was doing it in reverse, flying in one airplane, with one engine, and no other person aboard. (hawaii-gov)

A crowd of less than 1,000 was on hand to see the take-off. “Mr. Putnam was worried and perspiring as the plane got into the air. ‘I would rather have a baby,’ he said.”

“Despite the bad weather in the Schofield Barracks area, which included a drizzling rain and a muddy field, (Putnam) decided that conditions for her 2,400-mile cruise which she had planned ever since her arrival here two weeks ago, were right.”

“Everything fine; weather fair,” she radioed to Honolulu. (NYTimes, January 11, 1935)

The scene at Oakland Airport was a contrast to the Wheeler point of departure, as 5,000 people lined the field to offer a tumultuous reception for the first human to fly solo and non-stop over one ocean and 2,000 miles over another.

The West Coast appeared to the pilot twice in error, each time turning out to be cloud shadows on the water’s surface. The third time, however, was land.

Then she sighted the landing field and the hundreds of honking cars. The time was 12:50 pm, January 12, 1935. Some 2,090 nautical miles from Wheeler Field – 18 hours and 15 minutes later – she settled into a perfect landing in the California airport.

A brilliant success, the flight was accomplished by a flyer whose only motivation was the love of flying, and a desire to contribute trail-blazing marks to the world. (hawaii-gov)

Oh … we generally refer to Mrs George Palmer Putnam as Amelia Earhart. Today is the anniversary of her historic solo flight from Hawaiʻi to the continent, the first person, man or woman, to do so.

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Amelia Earhart poses in front of her airplane in Wheeler Field, Hawaii, on January 4, 1935-NatlGeographic

Amelia Earhart arrives in Hawaii on the Lurline, sailing past Aloha Tower on 12-27-1934

Amelia Earhart’s plans to fly solo from Hawaii to the U.S. shipped her plane from Los Angeles on December 23, 1934-NatlGeographic

George Palmer Putnam and Amelia Earhart Putnam

Flower leis drape Amelia Earhart in Honolulu on January 3, 1935-NatlGeographic

Eating pineapple with Duke Kahanamoku-January 11, 1935-NatlGeographic

Amelia Earhart & husband George Putnam are serenaded by Royal Hawaiian Hotel musicians 1-2-1935

Amelia Earhart 1935

Amelia Earhart delivers a lecture at University of Hawaii 1-2-1935.

Pilot Amelia Earhart readies her plane at Wheeler Field, Hawaii, for a flight across some Pacific islands-NatlGeographic

Amelia Earhart is showered with flowers-the first person to successfully fly from Hawaii to California-NatlGeographic

Amelia Earhart Memorial-plaque

January 10, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Oʻahu Charity School

Andrew Johnstone, born in Dundee, Scotland in 1794, came to the US in 1813; he and his wife (Rebecca Worth Johnstone) were members of the Fourth Company of missionaries to the Islands, arriving on June 7, 1831. (Mission Houses)

The missionaries stationed at Honolulu were overwhelmed with working with the native Hawaiian population, preaching, translating the Bible, preparing text books and superintending the Hawaiians in schools. (Alexander)

The missionaries taught their lessons in Hawaiian to the Hawaiians, rather than English. In part, the mission did not want to create a separate caste and portion of the community as English-speaking Hawaiians.

Johnstone, by a previous understanding, devoted part of his time to visiting seamen and distributing Bibles and other books among them. During one of these visits, he met the 12 or 14-year-old son of Captain Carter, commanding the English Cutter ‘William Little’ then in port.

Johnstone offered young Carter some books and invited him to his house; in a day or two he brought with him another lad, the son of a foreign resident, who asked Johnstone to teach him to read.

Johnstone agreed, and very soon one and another boy came asking the same favor, to the point where a regular class was formed. (Alexander)

Meanwhile, “(m)arriages between foreigners and Hawaiians appear of late to be rapidly increasing, and it has been the custom of many parents to send their offspring to the United States to receive an education.” (Polynesian, April 10, 1841)

Some of the parents of half-Hawaiian/half-foreign children wanted their children to learn the English language. There was an evident and growing need for an English language school. (Polynesian, April 10, 1841)

Soon, a subscription was opened to raise funds for the creation of a school house for the instruction of English-speaking children. Generous donations were made by some of the residents, and an orphan-school fund was created. This led to the establishment of the ‘Oʻahu Charity School.’

The missionaries supported Johnstone’s efforts at their June 1832 ‘General Meeting,’ resolving “That the Mission approve of Mr and Mrs Johnstone’s continuing their attention to the instruction of the children of foreigners, making annually such a report to the Mission of the school and their labors, as is required of the rest of our number in our respective spheres of action.”

The King granted a lot for the school in an area of Honolulu known as Mililani. On September 3, 1832, the subscribers met and approved the construction of a schoolhouse. (Polynesian, April 10, 1841)

“It is a neat substantial building of stone, 56 feet long and 26 feet wide, fitted up with benches, and other conveniences, for a school-room”. (Sailor’s Magazine, August 1838) (It stood in a lane running from King to Queen Street near the Waikiki end of the Judiciary building. (Goodale))

“On looking around the room, it appeared well furnished with cards, maps, books, slates, &c, of an excellent character and in sufficient variety.” (Polynesian, November 14, 1840)

“Thirty five children of both sexes having been admitted, the school was opened on the 10th Jan. 1833. … The children were all beginners, and nearly all entirely ignorant of the language of their teachers.” (Polynesian, April 10, 1841)

“Until the establishment of this institution, the education of (the children of Hawaiian mothers and foreign fathers) was almost entirely neglected, but now they appear to be in a fair way to become fitted for stations of usefulness and respectability in life.) (Polynesian, November 14, 1840)

Oʻahu Charity School was the first school in the Islands and the first school on the Pacific where the English language was used (it was one of six English language schools west of the Rockies.) In fact, it received pupils from the US, Alaska and Mexico. (NEA, February 1922)

In 1842, nine boys from the best families of California were sent here to be educated at the Oʻahu Charity School. One of these boys was José Antonio Romualdo Pacheco, Jr. He came to the Islands when he was 7-years old, and was in the Islands for five years. He later became the 12th-Governor of American California.

The School continued to increase in numbers and usefulness; however, there was a falling out and the Johnstones left (January 22, 1844) and formed their own school.

During the years Pacheco attended the School, its good reputation and numbers steadily increased. Students were arriving from the Russian settlement of Kamchatka, while others were coming from California and the other Hawaiian Islands.

The school had dormitories for the students who were either orphans or who had been sent from distant places. The curriculum was comprehensive and substantial, including classes to teach the Hawaiian language, writing, reading, mathematics, sciences, the arts and geography. (Hartmann & Wright)

Later, other schools offered English language education. Oʻahu Charity School experienced financial difficulties, with the rise of various competing private schools, and in 1851 was provided with public assistance.

A special tax was imposed on all foreigners of legal age residing in Honolulu: $3 for every individual without children, and $5 for every individual having children within the school age. This plan met with general approval. (Alexander)

The school’s name then changed to the Town Free School, but its board maintained control over the school until 1859, when it passed into the Superintendent of School’s domain. (NPS)

In 1865, the Board of Education split the school into separate boys and girls (the Town Free School became Mililani Girls School.) In 1874, that school closed and the girls went to a new school called Pohukaina. (Alexander)

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January 8, 2016 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Mule Tunnel

With its panoramic view from Koko Head to Waiʻanae, the summit of Diamond Head was an ideal site for the coastal defense of O‘ahu. In 1904, Diamond Head was purchased by the Federal government and designated for military use.

In 1906, Secretary of War William H Taft convened the National Coast Defense Board (Taft Board) “to consider and report upon the coast defenses of the United States and the insular possessions (including Hawai‘i.)” They recommended a system of Coast Artillery batteries to protect Pearl Harbor and Honolulu.

Fortification of Diamond Head began in 1908 with the construction of gun emplacements and an entry tunnel through the north wall of the crater from Fort Ruger known as the Mule Tunnel.

Originally, the tunnel was 5-feet wide and 7-feet high which is what was required for mules. Mules were used primarily to pull narrow gauge rail cars loaded with material in and out of the crater and to the various construction points.

Fort Ruger Military Reservation was established at Diamond Head (Leʻahi) in 1906. The Reservation was named in honor of Major General Thomas H. Ruger, who served from 1871 to 1876 as the superintendent of the United States Military Academy at West Point.

The trail to the Diamond Head summit was built in 1908 as part of the US Army Coastal Artillery defense system. Entering the crater from Fort Ruger, through the Mule Tunnel, the trail scaled the steep interior western slopes of the crater to the summit.

The dirt trail with numerous switchbacks was designed for mule and foot traffic. The mules hauled materials on this trail for the construction of Fire Control Station Diamond Head located at the summit. Other materials were hoisted from the crater floor by a winch and cable to a midway point along the trail. (DLNR)

In about 1910, there was a narrow gauge railway running from the mule tunnel across the center of the crater

Between 1909-1921, the Hawaiian Coast Artillery Command had its headquarters at Fort Ruger and defenses included artillery regiments stationed at Fort Armstrong, Fort Barrette, Fort DeRussy, Diamond Head, Fort Kamehameha, Kuwa‘aohe Military Reservation (Fort Hase – later known as Marine Corps Base Hawaiʻi) and Fort Weaver.

The forts and battery emplacements were dispersed for concealment and to insure that a projectile striking one would not thereby endanger a neighbor.

The fort included Battery Harlow (1910-1943 – northern exterior;) Battery Hulings (1915-1925- (tunnels through crater wall;) Battery Dodge (1915-1925 – tunnels through east crater wall;) Battery Mills (1916-1925 – on Black Point;) Battery Birkhimer (1916-1943 – mostly below ground inside the crater;) Battery Granger Adams (1935-1946 – on Black Point (replaced Battery Mills;)) Battery 407 (1944 – tunnels through south crater wall;) and Battery Ruger (1937-1943).

In 1922, Mule Tunnel was enlarged to 15 feet wide by 14 feet high. A Fire Control Switchboard that had been in a shed outside the tunnel was moved into a room carved into the wall about 100 feet from the outside end. (Its name later changed to the Kapahulu Tunnel.)

The headquarters of the Harbor Defenses of Honolulu came to Fort Ruger in January 1927. In 1932 work began on a bombproof Harbor Defense Command Post (HDCP or “H” Station) built into the Kapahulu Tunnel.

During the widening of the tunnel, a larger cavern was cut into the wall of the tunnel at the downhill end, creating rooms for a Harbor Defense Command Post.

The new complex of eight rooms included the old fire control switchboard room and became the Harbor Defense Command Post. (Those rooms are now used by the Hawaii Red Cross as storage.)

In 1932 the tunnel was enlarged again, to 17 feet high to allow truck traffic. During the widening a larger cavern was cut into the wall of the tunnel at the downhill end, creating rooms for a Harbor Defense Command Post.

The Kahala Tunnel was built in the 1940s and is the public entrance today. (The Kapahulu Tunnel is used only when the Kahala Tunnel is closed for repairs or problems.)

In January 1950 Fort Ruger became the headquarters of the Hawaii National Guard. In 1955 most of the Fort Ruger reservation was turned over to Hawaii with the U.S. Army retaining the parade and Palm Circle until 1974 and the Cannon Club (officers’ club) until 1997.

The fort’s barracks area became the University of Hawaii’s Kapiʻolani Community College. (Lots of information is from DiamondHeadHike.)

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Diamond_Head-Mule-Team-StarAdv

Kapahulu_Tunnel-diamondheadhike

Originally Harbor Defense Command Post offices, now Red Cross Storage-diamondheadhike

Brian Miyamoto of Hawaii Civil Defense and Denby Fawcett walk through the Kapahulu or Mule Tunnel-StarAdv

Old Mule trail – now hike to summit

Old Mule trail-now hike to summit

Hike to summit

Near summit

Kahala Tunnel

Tunnel on hike to summit

Ft_Ruger-1938

State Monument interpretive sign

Diamond_Head_State_Park-Summit_Trail-map

Fort_Ruger_1922_Main_Post_Plan-WC

Fort_Ruger_Harbor Defense Command Post (HDCP)

Diamond_Head_State_Park-Master_Plan-Layout

January 6, 2016 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

“the loveliest fleet of islands that lies anchored in any ocean”

In 1866, Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) was retained by The Sacramento Union newspaper to write a series of articles on Hawaiʻi. Here are some of his words about Hawaiʻi (from that series, as well as his other writing.)

“I was there for four or five months, and returned to find myself about the best known man on the Pacific Coast.” (Twain) Popular pieces, some credit the series with turning Twain into a journalistic star.

Like they get to a lot of people, the Islands struck a chord with Clemens.

“On the seventh day out we saw a dim vast bulk standing up out of the wastes of the Pacific and knew that that spectral promontory was Diamond Head”.

“So we were nearing Honolulu, the capital city of the Sandwich Islands – those islands which to me were Paradise; a Paradise which I had been longing all those years to see again. Not any other thing in the world could have stirred me as the sight of that great rock did.”

“The town of Honolulu (said to contain between 12,000 and 15,000 in habitants) is spread over a dead level; has streets from twenty to thirty feet wide, solid and level as a floor, most of them straight as a line … houses one and two stories high, … there are great yards, (that) are ornamented by a hundred species of beautiful flowers and blossoming shrubs, and shaded”.

“A mile and a half from town, I came to a grove of tall cocoanut trees, with clean, branchless stems reaching straight up sixty or seventy feet and topped with a spray of green foliage sheltering clusters of cocoa‐nuts”.

“… not more picturesque than a forest of colossal ragged parasols, with bunches of magnified grapes under them, would be. … It is the village of Waikiki once the Capital of the kingdom and the abode of the great Kamehameha I.”

“What a picture is here slumbering in the solemn glory of the moon! How strong the rugged outlines of the dead volcano stand out against the clear sky! What a snowy fringe marks the bursting of the surf over the long, curved reef!”

“I tried surf-bathing (surfing) once, subsequently, but made a failure of it. I got the board placed right, and at the right moment, too; but missed the connection myself. – The board struck the shore in three quarters of a second, without any cargo, and I struck the bottom about the same time, with a couple of barrels of water in me.”

“It has been six weeks since I touched a pen. In explanation and excuse I offer the fact that I spent that time (with the exception of one week) on the island of Maui. … I never spent so pleasant a month before.”

“I went to Maui to stay a week and remained five. I had a jolly time. I would not have fooled away any of it writing letters under any consideration whatever. … I sail for the island of Hawaiʻi tomorrow.”

“We landed at Kailua (Kona,) a little collection of native grass houses reposing under tall cocoanut trees ‐ the sleepiest, quietest, Sundayest looking place you can imagine.”

“Ye weary ones that are sick of the labor and care, and the bewildering turmoil of the great world, and sigh for a land where ye may fold your tired hands and slumber your lives peacefully away, pack up your carpet sacks and go to Kailua!”

“I suppose no man ever saw Niagara for the first time without feeling disappointed. I suppose no man ever saw it the fifth time without wondering how he could ever have been so blind and stupid as to find any excuse for disappointment in the first place.”

“I was disappointed when I saw the great volcano of Kilauea to‐day for the first time. It is a comfort to me to know that I fully expected to be disappointed, however, and so, in one sense at least, I was not disappointed.”

“I said to myself ‘Only a considerable hole in the ground ‐ nothing to Haleakala ‐ a wide, level, black plain in the bottom of it, and a few little sputtering jets of fire occupying a place about as large as an ordinary potato‐patch, up in one corner ‐ no smoke to amount to anything.’”

“I reflected that night was the proper time to view a volcano … I turned my eyes upon the volcano again (now, at night.)”

“… the floor of the abyss was magnificently illuminated; beyond these limits the mists hung down their gauzy curtains and cast a deceptive gloom over all … Here was room for the imagination to work! … it was the idea, of eternity made tangible ‐ and the longest end of it made visible to the naked eye!”

“We hear all our lives about the ‘gentle, stormless Pacific,’ and about the ‘smooth and delightful route to the Sandwich Islands,’ and about the ‘steady blowing trades’ that never vary, never change, never ‘chop around’”.

“No alien land in all the world has any deep, strong charm for me but that one; no other land could so longingly and beseechingly haunt me, sleeping and waking, through half a lifetime, as that one has done.”

“Other things leave me, but it abides; other things change, but it remains the same. For me its balmy airs are always blowing, its summer seas flashing in the sun; the pulsing of its surf beat is in my ear”.

“I can see its garlanded craigs, its leaping cascades, its plumy palms drowsing by the shore; its remote summits floating like islands above the cloudrack”.

“I can feel the spirit of its woodland solitudes; I can hear the plash of its brooks; in my nostrils still lives the breath of flowers that perished twenty years ago.”

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January 3, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Collapse to Caldera

The Hawaiian Islands are volcanic in origin. Each island is made up of at least one primary volcano, although many islands are composites of more than one. The Big Island, for instance, is constructed of 5 major volcanoes: Kilauea, Mauna Loa, Mauna Kea, Hualālai and Kohala. Mauna Loa is the largest active volcano on Earth.

Kilauea is presently one of the most productive volcanoes on Earth (in terms of how much lava it erupts each year). The primary volcanoes on each of the islands are known as a shield volcanoes, which are gently sloping mountains produced from a large number of generally very fluid lava flows. (SOEST)

To the casual observer, Kilauea appears to be part of the larger volcano Mauna Loa, but geological data indicates that it is a separate volcano with its own vent and conduit system. (livescience) When Kilauea began to form is not known, but various estimates are 300,000-600,000-years ago. (USGS)

Kilauea is a broad shield volcano built against the southeastern slope of Mauna Loa. The summit presently has a caldera that is roughly 2.5-miles by 2-miles wide, and walls nearly 400-feet. Another feature, known as Halemaʻumaʻu crater, lies within the main caldera (on the southwestern side.)

For the past century, Halemaʻumaʻu has been the principal site of activity at Kilauea’s summit. There has also been frequent activity along the Southeast rift zone (such as the presently active Puʻu ʻOʻo eruption, which started in 1983.)

While at nearby Mauna Loa eruptions tend to occur in pairs (i.e., a summit eruption followed by one on the flank), Kilauea’s pattern of summit versus flank activity appear to be more random. However, evidence of numerous flank eruptions occurring after a summit eruption can be found. (SOEST)

Sometimes, volcano summits form calderas. When an erupting volcano empties a shallow-level magma chamber, the edifice of the volcano may collapse into the voided reservoir, thus forming a steep, bowl-shaped depression called a caldera (Spanish for kettle or cauldron.)

The summit regions of many active shield volcanoes are marked by calderas. Hawaiian examples include the Mokuaweoweo caldera on Mauna Loa and the Kilauea caldera on Kilauea. (sdsu-edu)

So, when and how was the Kīlauea Caldera formed?

The modern caldera at Kilauea collapsed in about 1470-1500 AD, as recognized by geologic field work and C-14 radiocarbon dating. Two lines of geologic evidence indicate it was very deep soon after it formed, as is also suggested by Hawaiian oral tradition.

Scientists suggest at least a couple possibilities exist for the collapse. One is that the magma reservoir emptied rapidly without erupting; the other possibility is that magma withdrawal was prolonged, not rapid, in response to slow eruption of the ʻAilāʻau lava flow (the largest in Hawaiʻi in more than 1000 years.)

The flow erupted on the east side of Kilauea’s summit during a ca. 60-yr period ending in about 1470. It has typical tube-fed formation, consistent with slow eruption. The eruption just predates the caldera – its shield is cut by the outermost caldera fault – and in fact could have ended when the caldera formed. (Swanson)

Geologic evidence indicates that the caldera appeared in about AD 1500, give or take several decades. It developed at the end of, or soon after, a 60-year-long eruption from the ʻAilāʻau shield just east of Kilauea Iki, flooding much of Puna with lava flows. The caldera formed at the start of, or shortly before, a series of explosions that radiocarbon ages date to about AD 1500. (USGS)

However, most geologic models assume very rapid removal of material to form a caldera. The argument is that a large void cannot support itself underground, so an empty volume of a few cubic miles could not exist for long. If so, a huge volume of magma must have almost instantaneously left the reservoir under Kilauea’s summit, leaving a void into which the summit fell.

Both geologic and cultural evidence should exist for such a major volcanic event. Indeed, the events are likely chronicled in the Pele-Hiʻiaka chants. But neither cultural nor geologic evidence tells us where the rocks disappeared when the top of the volcano sunk to form the caldera.

How much material was removed? The volume is uncertain but very large. If the entire caldera formed at one time, scientists estimate a volume of 1.4 cubic miles, equivalent to 780-million loads for a 10-cubic-yard dump truck. That estimate is based on the caldera’s dimensions when first surveyed in the 1820s and on guesses as to how much deeper it might have been. (USGS)

Historical eruptions at Kilauea volcano have occurred from both the summit caldera and from vents along the East Rift Zone. The historical record began with a very explosive eruption in 1790.

After this, the volcano was almost continuously active, mostly showing gentle effusion from a lava lake at the summit until 1924, when it again erupted explosively. The period 1924 to 1955 saw mostly short-duration summit eruptions.

From 1955 to the present Kilauea has seen mostly East Rift Zone activity interspersed with small summit eruptions. Two notable rift eruptions were Mauna Ulu (1969-1974) and Puʻu ʻOʻo (1983-present). Kilauea’s Eruption rate diminished steadily over the first half of the historic period but has been increasing again since 1924. (SOEST)

Since the Puʻu ʻOʻo eruption started on January 3, 1983, the southern part of the caldera has been sinking 2.5-4 inches/year. (USGS)

Currently there are 3 Hawaiian volcanoes that we can be classified as active: Kilauea, actively erupting since 1983; Mauna Loa, which last erupted in 1984 and is building for a new eruption in the next few years; and Loihi, which erupted in 1996.

All three of these active Hawaiian volcanoes share the Hawaiian hot spot, but retain unique volcanic histories and compositions.

The most likely dormant volcanoes are: Hualālai, which last erupted in 1801; Haleakalā, which last erupted in about 1790; and Mauna Kea, which last erupted about 4,000-years ago. (SOEST)

Due to the ongoing eruption, portions of the Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park are periodically closed, due the hazardous and unsafe conditions; check conditions and area closures before venturing.

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