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Haleakala a shrinking volcano

Jul 8, 2010 | Environment

Pu‘u ‘Ula‘ula is the highest point on Haleakala’s summit, with an elevation of 10,023 feet. But the mountain was once much higher than this.

Haleakala

In its prime, Haleakala may have reached a height of 15,000 feet.

At one time Maui consisted of 2 separate islands. The sea between them was filled with erosion from the two Volcanoes, and the fertile Central Maui valley was formed connecting the West and South. Factors that have contributed to Haleakala’s shrinking include thousands of years of wind and water erosion that began to carve two large river valleys out of the rim, rapid caldera collapse, and slow sinking into the ocean bed. The volcanoes of the Hawaiian chain do not erupt violently like Mt St. Helens, but rather have a long, sustained and relatively gentle eruptive cycle. They form “shield” volcanoes, so-called because they resemble the silhouette of an ancient Greek shield. As with icebergs, these volcanoes show only a small part of their total mass above water, leaving 95% below on an ocean seamount. Haleakala is the 3rd highest point in the Hawaiian islands. It is also the third highest mountain in the world from seamount to top.

As the Pacific plate moves northwestward at 10 cm per year, it carries the shield-stage volcano away from its heat source. As a result, the volcano erupts less frequently, and the lava erupted will differ chemically from that produced during the shield stage because of the diminished heat supply. These changes define the character of the third stage, called postshield volcanism. Nearly 200 km from the hot spot, Haleakala volcano is still in its postshield stage of volcanic evolution, and has been active for two million years. It remains active, having erupted several times in the past 1,000 years.

Haleakala’s last eruption was near the southernmost foot of the mountain at La Perouse Bay in the mid-1700s. Postshield lava supply is diminished, but not curtailed completely.

Haleakala will erupt again, given the frequency of its past eruptions and long eruptive history. Modern under- standing is that the recent, and coming eruptions are the waning efforts of a postshield-stage volcano.

Question of the Week:
Have you visited Haleakala National Park?

Leave a comment here or post it on the Focus Maui Nui Facebook Page. Mahalo!

Arriving by Air

Arriving by Air

Jul 1, 2010 | Community

In the 1920s a select few well-heeled visitors came to vacation in the two or three grand hotels at Waikiki Beach. Some flew in small amphibian airplanes to see the volcanoes on the Big Island, but Maui was seldom on their itinerary.

Inter-Island Airways, Ltd., (which eventually became Hawaiian Airlines), a subsidiary of Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company, landed its first Sikorsky plane on Maui on November 11, 1929. The following year Maui’s first official airport opened at Ma’alaea, and Inter-Island Airways began a daily passenger service to Maui, carrying passengers aboard Sikorsky planes with a 75- minute flight time from Honolulu. In early 1938, construction began on a new Maui airport near Camp 6 in Pu’unene. And during the early 1940’s, the military completed construction of air bases on Maui, including the Pu’unene Naval Air Station. During WWII, as Maui became an important training, staging, and rest area for U. S. military forces in the Pacific, that station was no longer big enough, and the Naval Air Station at Kahului (NASKA) was established in the cane fields and beaches around Kahului. After the war, the site at NASKA was described as the “most potentially ideal commercial airport site,” and in August, 1950, work began on Maui’s new commercial air terminal. The Kahului Airport became Maui’s main commercial and passenger air terminal on June 24, 1952, when Hawaiian Airlines and Trans-Pacific Airlines flights landed. By August, 1959, the year Hawai’i became a state, Maui had committed to developing its own visitor niche and work began at Ka’anapali, Hawaii’s first planned resort. The early 1980’s brought direct service from the mainland to Maui when United Air Lines’ first flight from Los Angeles landed at the Kahului Airport carrying 180 passengers.

Last month, inter-island, domestic, and international flights brought 160,121 visitors to Maui’s expanding Kahului Airport.

Question Of The Week:
How many air  flights did you take last year ?

Leave a comment here or post it on the Focus Maui Nui Facebook Page. Mahalo!