Hualalai

April 8, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Six Active Volcanoes in Hawai‘i

The Hawaiian Islands are at the southeast end of a chain of volcanoes that began to form more than 70 million years ago. Each island is made of one or more volcanoes, which first erupted on the floor of the Pacific Ocean and emerged above sea level only after countless eruptions.

Hawaiʻi sits over a ‘hot spot,’ the Hawaiian hot spot.

It’s one hot spot, but lots of volcanoes have formed over it. The Islands are above a moving sea floor of the North Pacific Ocean (the Pacific Ocean is mostly floored by a single tectonic plate known as the “Pacific Plate.”)

The Pacific Plate is moving over the layer in the Earth known as the Asthenosphere. This movement takes it to the northwest. As the plate moves over a fixed spot deeper in the Earth where magma (molten lava) forms, a new volcano can punch through this plate and create an island.

As the plate moves away, the volcano stops erupting and a new one is formed in its place. With time, the volcanoes keep drifting westward and getting older relative to the one active volcano that is over the hot spot.

As they age, the crust that they sit on cools and subsides. This, combined with erosion of the islands, once active volcanism stops, leads to a shrinking of the islands with age and their eventual submergence below the ocean surface.

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 (the island is still growing, but is basically about 400,000-years old.)

About 40-million years ago, the Pacific Plate changed direction from north to northwest – so the Emperor Seamounts run more north-south, the Hawaiian Ridge north-westerly.

Midway Island is 27.7-million years old; Meiji Seamount the northern part of the Emperor Seamount (near the end of the Aleutian chain) is about 80-million years old.

All of these are still youngsters, when you look at the perspective, say, of the dinosaurs. The Islands weren’t even a glimmer in anyone’s eyes when dinosaurs walked the Earth; sixty-five million years ago the last of the non-avian dinosaurs went extinct, after living on Earth for about 165-million years. (USGS)

If all of Earth time from the very beginning of the dinosaurs to today were compressed into 365 days (1 calendar year), the dinosaurs appeared January 1 and became extinct the third week of September.

Using this same time scale, the Earth would have formed approximately 18.5-years earlier. By comparison, people have been on earth only since December 31 (New Year’s eve.) (USGS)

While we typically think of and/or hear news reports of eruptions on Kilauea and Maunaloa, presently, the US Geological Survey (USGS) Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) monitors the six currently active volcanoes in Hawai‘i.

The Island of Hawai‘i, with four active volcanoes, is liveliest. Between 1912 and 2012, there were nearly 50 Kīlauea eruptions, 12 Mauna Loa eruptions, and one Hualālai intrusion of magma.

Kīlauea, the youngest and most active volcano on the Island of Hawai‘i, erupted almost continuously from 1983 to 2018 at Pu‘u‘ō‘ō and other vents along the volcano’s East Rift Zone. Since then, there have been periodic eruptions in and nearby Halema‘uma‘u crater at the volcano’s summit.

In 2018, Kīlauea experienced the largest lower East Rift Zone eruption and summit collapse in at least 200 years. Several summit eruptions since December 2020 have generated lava lakes that have been slowly filling in the collapsed area, including Halema‘uma‘u crater. About 90 percent of the volcano is covered with lava flows less than 1,100 years in age.

Mauna Loa, the largest volcano on Earth, has erupted 34 times since 1843. An eruption 1984 lasted 22 days and produced lava flows which reached to within about 4.5 miles of Hilo, the largest population center on the Island of Hawai‘i.

The most recent eruption in 2022 lasted two weeks and erupted lava flows that came to within 1.7 miles of the Daniel K Inouye Highway (Saddle Road). Lava flows less than 4,000 years old cover about 90 percent of the volcano.

Hualālai, the third most active volcano on the Island of Hawai‘i, has erupted three times in the past 1,000 years and eight times in the past 1,500 years.

The most recent eruption in 1801 generated a lava flow that reached the ocean and now underlies the Kona International Airport. Lava flows less than 5,000 years old cover about 80 percent of the volcano.

Mauna Kea, the highest volcano on the Island of Hawai‘i, erupted most recently between about 6,000 and 4,500 years ago from at least seven separate summit-area vents, producing lava flows and cinder cones. Glaciers covered parts of the volcano’s summit area during the recent ice ages, the only Hawaiian volcano known to have been glaciated.

Kama‘ehuakanaloa (formerly Lō‘ihi Seamount), the only known active Hawaiian submarine volcano, erupted most recently in 1996 during an earthquake swarm of more than 4,000 events that were recorded by the HVO seismic network. The volcano’s summit is about 3,179 ft below sea level, located 22 miles southeast of the Island of Hawai‘i.

Haleakalā, the only active volcano on the Island of Maui, erupted most recently between about 600 and 400 years ago. In the past 1,000 years, at least 10 eruptions produced lava flows and tephra cones from the rift zone that crosses the volcano from southwest to east and through Haleakalā Crater. (All here is from the US Geological Survey (USGS.))

December 12, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hualālai (as viewed by Isabella Bird)

“If all Hawaii, south of Waimea, were submerged to a depth of 8000 feet, three nearly equidistant, dome-shaped volcanic islands would remain, the highest of which would have an altitude of 6000 feet.” (Isabella Bird)

Hualālai (“the offspring of the shining sun”) is the third youngest and third-most historically active volcano on the Island of Hawai‘i. (USGS)

It is considered to be in the post-shield stage of activity. Six different vents erupted lava between the late 1700s and 1801, two of which generated lava flows that poured into the sea on the west coast of the island. (USGS)

The Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keāhole, located only 7 miles north of Kailua-Kona, is built atop the larger flow. The oldest dated rocks are from about 128,000 years ago and it probably reached an elevation above sea level before 300,000 years ago. (USGS)

“I very soon left the languid life of Kona for this sheep station, 6000 feet high on the desolate slope of the dead volcano of Hualalai, (“offspring of the shining sun,”) on the invitation of its hospitable owner, who said if I ‘could eat his rough fare, and live his rough life, his house and horses were at my disposal.’”

“This house is in the great volcanic wilderness of which I wrote from Kalaieha, a desert of drouth and barrenness. There is no permanent track, and on the occasions when I have ridden up here alone, the directions given me have been to steer for an ox bone, and from that to a dwarf ohia.”

“There is no coming or going; it is seventeen miles from the nearest settlement, and looks across a desert valley to Mauna Loa. … A brisk cool wind blows all day; every afternoon a dense fog brings the horizon within 200 feet, but it clears off with frost at dark, and the flames of the volcano light the whole southern sky.”

“I came up to within eight miles of this house with a laughing, holiday-making rout of twelve natives, who rode madly along the narrow forest trail at full gallop, up and down the hills, through mire and over stones, leaping over the trunks of prostrate trees, and stooping under branches with loud laughter, challenging me to reckless races over difficult ground …”

“… and when they found that the wahine haole was not to be thrown from her horse they patted me approvingly, and crowned me with leis of maile. I became acquainted with some of these at Kilauea in the winter, and since I came to Kona they have been very kind to me.”

“I thoroughly like living among them, taking meals with them on their mats, and eating ‘two fingered’ poi as if I had been used to it all my life. Their mirthfulness and kindliness are most winning; their horses, food, clothes, and time are all bestowed on one so freely, and one lives amongst them with a most restful sense of absolute security.”

“They have many faults, but living alone among them in their houses as I have done so often on Hawaii, I have never seen or encountered a disagreeable thing.”

“But the more I see of them the more impressed I am with their carelessness and love of pleasure, their lack of ambition and a sense of responsibility, and the time which they spend in doing nothing but talking and singing as they bask in the sun, though spasmodically and under excitement they are capable of tremendous exertions in canoeing, surf-riding, and lassoing cattle.”

“I sat for an hour on horseback on a rocky hill while they hunted the woods; then I heard the deep voices of bulls, and a great burst of cattle appeared, with hunters in pursuit, but the herd vanished over a dip of the hill side, and the natives joined me. …”

“I have made the ascent of Hualalai twice from here, the first time guided by my host and hostess, and the second time rather adventurously alone.”

“Forests of koa, sandal-wood, and ohia, with an undergrowth of raspberries and ferns clothe its base, the fragrant maile, and the graceful sarsaparilla vine, with its clustered coral-coloured buds, nearly smother many of the trees, and in several places the heavy ie forms the semblance of triumphal arches over the track.”

“This forest terminates abruptly on the great volcanic wilderness, with its starved growth of unsightly scrub. But Hualalai, though 10,000 feet in height, is covered with Pteris aquilina, mamane, coarse bunch grass, and pukeave to its very summit, which is crowned by a small, solitary, blossoming ohia.”

“For two hours before reaching the top, the way lies over countless flows and beds of lava, much disintegrated, and almost entirely of the kind called pahoehoe.”

“Countless pit craters extend over the whole mountain, all of them covered outside, and a few inside, with scraggy vegetation. The edges are often very ragged and picturesque. The depth varies from 300 to 700 feet, and the diameter from 700 to 1,200.”

“The walls of some are of a smooth grey stone, the bottoms flat, and very deep in sand, but others resemble the tufa cones of Mauna Kea. They are so crowded together in some places as to be divided only by a ridge so narrow that two mules can scarcely walk abreast upon it.”

“The mountain was split by an earthquake in 1868, and a great fissure, with much treacherous ground about it, extends for some distance across it. It is very striking from every point of view on this side, being a complete wilderness of craters, and over 150 lateral cones have been counted.”

“The object of my second ascent was to visit one of the grandest of the summit craters, which we had not reached previously owing to fog.”

“This crater is bordered by a narrow and very fantastic ridge of rock, in or on which there is a mound about 60 feet high, formed of fragments of black, orange, blue, red, and golden lava, with a cavity or blow-hole in the centre, estimated by Brigham as having a diameter of 25 feet, and a depth of 1800.”

“The interior is dark brown, much grooved horizontally, and as smooth and regular as if turned. There are no steam cracks or signs of heat anywhere. Superb caves or lava-bubbles abound at a height of 6000 feet. These are moist with ferns, and the drip from their roofs is the water supply of this porous region.”

“Hualalai, owing to the vegetation sparsely sprinkled over it, looks as if it had been quiet for ages, but it has only slept since 1801, when there was a tremendous eruption from it, which flooded several villages, destroyed many plantations and fishponds, filled up a deep bay 20 miles in extent, and formed the present coast.”

“The terrified inhabitants threw living hogs into the stream, and tried to propitiate the anger of the gods by more costly offerings, but without effect …”

“… till King Kamehameha, attended by a large retinue of priests and chiefs, cut off some of his hair, which was considered sacred, and threw it into the torrent, which in two days ceased to run. This circumstance gave him a greatly increased ascendancy, from his supposed influence with the deities of the volcanoes.”

“I have explored the country pretty thoroughly for many miles round, but have not seen anything striking, except the remains of an immense heiau in the centre of the desert tableland, said to have been built in a day by the compulsory labour of 25,000 people …”.

“I left Hualalai yesterday morning, and dined with my kind host and hostess in the wigwam. It was the last taste of the wild Hawaiian life I have learned to love so well, the last meal on a mat, the last exercise of skill in eating ‘two-fingered’ poi.”

“I took leave gratefully of those who had been so truly kind to me, and with the friendly aloha from kindly lips in my ears, regretfully left the purple desert in which I have lived so serenely, and plunged into the forest gloom.”

“Half way down, I met a string of my native acquaintances, who, as the courteous custom is, threw over me leis of maile and roses, and since I arrived here, others have called to wish me good bye, bringing presents of figs, cocoa-nuts and bananas.” (Isabella Bird, 1894)

May 22, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

When the American Protestant missionaries arrived in the Islands (1820), they sailed from Kawaihae to Kailua-Kona; Bingham wrote, “As we coasted slowly along southward, we had a grand view of Hualalai, the volcanic mountain that rises some eight or nine thousand feet, near the western side of Hawaii, with its terminal crater, its forests, and apparently recent streams of lava.”

In Kona, the “village of thatched huts, though in a dry and sterile spot, is ornamented with cocoanut and Kou trees, which to the eye form a relief. A few miles inland, trees and plantations are numerous; then, still further back, rises the forest-covered Mauna Hualalai, with its lofty terminal crater, now extinct. . .”

Missionary wife, Lucy Thurston noted, “On the mountain Hualalai, just back of Kailua, is a large crater. It is now extinct. But our old people tell us of the time in their childhood, when they were aroused from their midnight slumbers, to see red hot balls hurled into the air from out the crater on this mountain.”

“Torrents of molten lava flowed from crater to coast, extended the shore farther out into the sea, and encrusted the surface of the earth, besides leaving an abundance of large loose scoriae, tossed about in every direction.”

Hualalai (“obstructing the flow” (Parker Dictionary for a crater on the mountain)) is the third youngest and third-most historically active volcano on the Island of Hawai‘i.

Six different vents erupted lava between the late 1700s and 1801, two of which generated lava flows that poured into the sea on the west coast of the island. The Keāhole Airport is built atop the larger flow. (USGS)

The 1801 flow covered Pā‘aiea pond; “Pā‘aiea was a great pond almost like the ponds of Wainanalii and Kiholo. In the olden days, when the great ruling chiefs were living, and when these fish ponds were full of the riches of Awa, Anae, and Ahole, along with all sorts of fish which swam within.”

“During that time, Konohiki were stationed, and he was the guard of the pond that watched over the pond and all things, as here we are talking about Pā‘aiea Pond which was destroyed by lava and became pahoehoe lava which remains today”.

“In the correct and trues story of this pond, its boundaries began from Kaelehuluhulu on the north and on the south was at the place called Wawaloli, and the distance from one end to the other was 3 miles or more, and that was the length of this pond …”

“… and today within these boundaries, there are a number of pools [lua wai loko] remaining during this time that the writer is speaking before the readers of the Hoku.” (Hoku o Hawaii, 2/5/1914)

The lava came and destroyed the great fishpond of Pā‘aiea, dried its water and filled and covered it with black rocks. However, two places were spared.

There remained only that very small portion of the fishpond, close to Ho‘ona (within the Natural Energy Laboratory property at Keāhole Point.) Also, the area below the old headquarters at Hu‘ehu‘e Ranch was left untouched, and this open space bears the name of Pahinahina to this day.

It is said that because of this event that the lands of Manuahi came to be called Ka-ulu-pulehu (the roasted breadfruit (‘ū is short for ‘ulu,)) and this has been shortened to Ka‘ūpūlehu.

Though Hualalai is not nearly as active as Mauna Loa or Kilauea, recent geologic mapping of the volcano shows that 80 percent of Hualalai’s surface has been covered by lava flows in the past 5,000 years. (USGS)

In the past few decades, when most of the resorts, homes and commercial buildings were built on the flanks of Hualalai, earthquake activity beneath the volcano has been low.

In 1929, however, an intense swarm of earthquakes lasting more than a month was most likely caused by magma rising to near the surface. For these reasons, Hualalai is considered a potentially dangerous volcano that is likely to erupt again in the next 100 years. (USGS)

A Pālama Nui kāua
Wai māpuna kau i ka maka ka ‘ōpua
Hualalai huewai kuahiwi

You and I stand together on the Foundation of Profound Enlightenment
Where the spring water is borne upon the clouds
Mount Hualalai, a mountain water-gourd

(from Nā‘ū Pālama Nui – ”Hualalai, huewai kuahiwi” is a traditional saying honoring Hualalai’s role in sponging the atmosphere of moisture to fill the aquifers.) (Tangarō, UH-HCC)

With respect to groundwater, an interesting conclusion, based on isotopic data for the high level water, shows that most of the groundwater recharge under Hualalai is coming from recharge at significantly higher elevations than the local rainfall in the mid-elevations of Hualalai (at nearly 3,000 year average age of the water in the high level aquifer).

In other words, not much of the “local” rainfall in the vicinity of the high level wells is actually getting into the high level aquifer. (as noted by Don Thomas, research faculty of the Hawai‘i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology at UH and Director of the Center for the Study of Active Volcanoes at the UH‐Hilo campus.)

The only alternative that can explain the isotopic and age data for the high level aquifer, with significant amounts of local recharge entering it, is that substantially larger amounts of much older recharge to the high level aquifers is coming into the Hualalai water system from the adjacent regions in the Saddle and from Mauna Loa. (Don Thomas)