Happy Birthday and Volcanoes

Everybody must be nice to me – its my birthday (or at least I have not yet gone to sleep so it still counts as my birthday). As most of you know I have been on an extended holiday since August. The original plan was to keep a blog of my travels and activities. However I was too busy to do so. November is national blogging month and the 2 blogs I read have committed to posting daily. Inspired by then I will do the same. Every day from now until end of November I will blog either on what I have done that day or from the last few months adventures in Mexico, France, Italy, Spain and Hawaii.

I am often melancholy at birthdays thinking about what I haven’t achieved and how I am getting older but not always wiser. Additionally this birthday is somewhat significant (my age is between 30 and 40 and is the product of two prime numbers but I am neither 33 nor 39). So there were all the ingredients for quite a depressing day. To combat this I arranged to go to Hawaii with my friend E.

We arrived in Honolulu on Saturday. We are staying on Oahu but today we flew to the Big Island to visit the Volcano. I am fascinated by geothermal activity, that’s why I love Rotarua in New Zealand and Yellowstone in USA. Every so often I think it would have been better to keep on geology rather than choosing chemistry but then I remind myself of how terrible geology field work is in Ireland – standing on a narrow road trying to avoid the passing traffic as I look at rocks while failing to keep myself or my notebook safe from the relentless Irish rain. But its different in Hawaii. We had no rain on the Big Island and despite the relatively short time on the Island, we saw some of the newest land in the world and an active volcano.

The US state Hawaii is a series of 8 volcanic islands. The pacific plate is slowly moving over a geothermal hotspot. The older islands are to the northwest and no longer have volcanic activity. Maui has both dormant and extinct volcanoes but real geothermal activity is on the island of Hawaii (also called the big Island because it’s the biggest – indeed all the other Hawaiian Islands could fit in its landmass). The Big Island is actually 5 different volcanoes in different stages of lifecycles
1. Kohala—extinct
2. Mauna Kea—dormant
3. Hualālai—active but not currently erupting
4. Mauna Loa—active, partly within Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park
5. Kīlauea—active: has been erupting continuously since 1983; part of Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park

As we only had a day we took an organised tour which visited the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Before that we visited a black sand beach. To be honest the beach was tiny most of the area was covered with hardened black lava. The lava had flown underground until it reached the sea where it cooled. It was amazing the amount of land that had been created. Also the old shoreline was still easy to spot with lines of mature coconut trees. Some baby coconut trees were growing in the black rock. I thought there was no way the rock could sustain plant life but there was overwhelming evidence against me (even though they were only baby coconut trees)

After the beach we went to Volcanoes National Park. We saw an active caldera complete with gaseous plumes. Unfortunately there was neither lava nor magma to be seen. Probably just as well as the lava is dangerous. The visitors centre had a display about the geologist who got caught up to his knees in lava. After several months he was able to walk again but if that can happen to an expert, God only knows what might happen to the lay people!

But the best part of the day was the birthday wishes I got from all over the world (from Europe, the US, Asia and the Middle East). I got emails, texts, facebook posts and a present from my friend E. I also spoke with my sister, brother and mother. Thank-you everybody for helping me have a happy birthday. Over the next few weeks I will be in Chicago and Toronto so some of you can help me celebrate in person (because November was Helen’s birthday month long before it was national blogging month)