L'Union fait la force

We heard this morning that our friends Père Elie Charles, his wife Jamine, daughter Minou, and the rest of their family in Haiti are safe! Père Elie and Jamine, especially, are like family to me, and I am so relieved that they are okay.

I hope that the silver lining to this tragedy will be worldwide attention to Haiti's suffering and a strong will to better the quality of life there. This is an opportunity to start over and not repeat the selfish decisions of past American and Haitian leaders.

Last night, I went to a prayer vigil for Haiti at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Minneapolis. I reunited with several women who I traveled to Haiti with in 2001, so we were able to both express our concern for our friends who we had not heard from and reminisce about our adventures in Haiti. What a mixture of wrenching worry and happy nostalgia.

Here are the words of reflection that the Episcopal Bishop Jelinek gave last night. I found them to be comforting, especially the words against Pat Robertson's awful and heartless comments...

We have come together in shock, grief, dismay, concern and a sense of helplessness in the aftermath of one of the most awful devastations of human life in Haiti the day before yesterday. While many bodies lie undiscovered and others are still lost from their families, we are not yet hearing stories of what we call miracles that warm our hearts and cheer our souls.

We come together in our helplessness, for we know we cannot bear helplessness all alone. There may be something we can do - at least pray; there may be a word of hope to hear; there may be a moment of solace in holding onto one another.

Tragedies like this, where so many lives are lost, when urban landscapes are unrecognizable, when people are still caked in dust, when whole systems of production and order and care-giving and transportation and communication are interrupted or cut off - tragedies like this challenge our whole sense of security and justice and even hope. We like to believe we stand and live on solid ground.

And yet...

We live our whole lives on a fault. Those of us who have lived in parts of the world where the deep tectonic plates of the earth are still moving and shifting know that one of these shifts can happen at any moment, causing an earthquake, or, as we say in French, a "tremblement de terre" - a trembling of the earth.

We would like to believe that life can be predictable, certain, clear, but it is not so. Today we grieve over the devastation and loss of life from an earthquake. Recently we have grieved over the devastation of tsunamis, typhoons, hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, blizzards-natural disasters of many kinds.

Some believe that the God who created the universe still pulls the strings like a puppeteer or a stage director, finding ways to punish those God does not like or who make God mad. But I do not believe that. If God were so vindictive, so cruel, then how could so many of God's followers be moved to open their hearts to be so generous, so helpful, so willing to pour out care and affection and resources? If humankind has grown at all over the centuries and the millennia, it is in our awareness that God calls us to love and forgive and give beyond our families, beyond our friends, beyond people who look and speak like us.

We can explain how natural disasters happen. We can understand why in terms of geology and climate, but we cannot explain them in terms of God's anger or displeasure. This is not about blame. This is about being able to suffer together, and we either suffer together or we suffer apart. I prefer to suffer with you rather than without you. And I believe that God suffers with us.

It was Jesus who wept at the grave of his friend Lazarus. It was Jesus who revealed God's heart in the midst of the most painful dimensions of human life. And how can we imagine that God's heart, like ours, is not broken by the loss of so many lives, cut off in the bud or even in full bloom. It is not that God causes or allows terrible things to happen. We believe that God is with us and between and among us in the midst of the terror and grief.

As for me, I have been home from Hawai`i for about a month, I have finished applying to grad schools, and am now spending time with family and friends while applying for jobs in the Cities. This will most likely be my last post, seeing that my time in Hawai`i has ended and my daily activities are no longer quite as exciting.

I'd like to be a pilot.

Seriously, helicopters are possibly the coolest mode of transportation that I have ever experienced. The helicopter is so small and light (with no doors!) that the winds were pushing us around, but somehow we managed to get to where we needed to go.

All HVO volunteers are taken up to the skies at least once during the visit, and my turn came last Friday morning (11/20). Conditions were ripe for a smooth flight, with bright blue skies and relatively light mist over Pu`u `O`o. We started our brief journey by flying over Halema`uma`u (and we swerved on my side so that I was directly over the vent, staring Pele in the face).

Above is Kelly photographing the summit vent, and below, an artsy photo while we're landing.

The view of the ocean entry with the big plumes (Waikupanaha), and you can see the new ocean entry (West Waikupanaha) with the smaller plume in the distance.

Fun with the camera while we're on the ground...

We took a short stop to sample the fresh flows west of the lava tube. This was the most active (aka fastest) lava I've seen yet! Also, flightsuits are hott. I'm getting one when I get home.

What an adrenaline rush! I have to do this again sometime.

All photos in this post are property of the USGS.

What I came to Hawai`i to see (besides lava)

Public Hawksbill turtle nest excavation at Puna Lu`u on Veteran's Day:




There's no doubt that these are the most adorable creatures on Earth. It was so special for all of us to see these lil' babies encounter water for the first time, especially since no one will ever see the males again and the females lead such epic lives. They're fearlessly and innocently heading into an incredibly deadly environment because, well, there's no other option. I don't know about you, but I'm inspired. Good luck, hatchlings!

Green Sands Beach!

Veteran's Day seemed the ideal day to take the mondo Mauna Loa 4WD car to South Point to visit the famous and off-the-beaten-trail Green Sands Beach. I'll probably never go to a beach in mid-November again in my life.

My weak attempt to keep sand from getting into my wounds. Ultimately, the plan failed.


Green sands! And plenty of tourists. The green sand is weathered olivine from basaltic phenocrysts, and it's heavier than black sand (basalt grains). It is preferentially sieved by the waves and washes up on this beach.

There's me, sitting at the top of the beach, reading Lucretius' On the Nature of the Universe. It's a good read - I recommend it. He has some funky ideas, like that things that are pleasurable to our senses have smooth, round atom shapes while things that are sticky, smelly, or gross have rough and jagged atom shapes. However, some things, like sea water, can have a mix of atom shapes because it is fluid (smooth shapes) but also salty (rough shapes). Trippy....

Another Misadventure, of the Sea Urchin variety

I'm sure most of you are aware of this incident by now, if you've seen the pictures on Facebook that Andy P. posted. I thought that I would tell the story from the trailhead, and I'll also mention that I'm nearly walking normally now and the sea urchin spines are almost gone (I think).

The first photo of the weekend, taken on November 6th. The original plan was to hike 6 miles to Apua Point (the turtle beach that I visited earlier this summer), camp there one night, and then continue through Keauhou beach to camp at Halape beach the second night. We're all excited to start the long, flat trail along the southern coastline.

Apua Point at sunset is a beautiful cove. There was a near-cloudless sky with plenty of dramatic shooting stars.

Along the trail from Apua to Keauhou, Katie and I stopped along the way to check out some potential 'shatter rings' for Katie's supervisor.

We finally made it to Keauhou and found the other members of our group. Keauhou is a pretty nice beach, secluded with nice soft sand. According to some people, it's the best snorkeling spot on the island, so of course I was tempted...Unfortunately, the 'best' spot is where the larger waves are.

Snorkeling with Katie! There were a few cool fish, but we were getting pushed offshore by the waves so decided to head in...

The two bobbing heads on the left are us, and we were heading straight for those rocks on the shore when the waves got rougher and pushed us onto them. I was dragged across a sea urchin and about a dozen spines punctured my foot. I also collected several scrapes on both legs and feet from the rocks. Luckily, we had several first aid kits so we patched it up as best we could.

There wasn't really a feasible way for me to reach Halape, so the options were to hike up the pali, or go back the way we came along the coast. Although the coastal trail was longer, it seemed the better option, so Dave B. was a gentleman and walked out the 9 miles with Katie and I back to the car. When I got back to the house, I soaked my foot in vinegar and hot water, and it looked like this:

Gross, right? I think the purple color comes from the venom or dye that was injected by the spines. It faded after a few days. No worries, I'm walking okay, and I'll probably try to get to Halape again during one of my remaining weekends...

Fieldwork at Mauna Loa summit, Oct 19-21

This was one epic trip, and as our supervisor Frank would say, "The mountain won." Mauna Loa is a formidable beast, especially if the camp stove that worked perfectly at 4500ft fails to light in the bitter cold of 13000ft. That was our first misadventure on the Mountain, but we survived the night without dinner and luckily were able to get another camp stove by hailing a helicopter to fly it up.

Sarah Iki, me, and Mango on the northwest rim of Moku`aweoweo at sunset.

Mauna Kea in the background! Luckily it was clear like this the entire time.

Hualalai in the distance and the sunset.

Lunch the second day tasted delicious with our fancy new (functional) camp stove! When we hailed the helicopter, I was reminded of the opening scene from MASH...

Digging in the dirt! Taking fine-grained samples to look for lithics...Erin looks excited, too.

Erin and I huddling next to the van while cooking dinner to avoid the wind.

Last day! Driving home, we stopped by this dramatic fissure. Lava poured into it from both sides to create a smooth surface.

All photos in this post are the property of the USGS.

The Return of the Lava

I suppose the lava never really left, but I was inspired by the amazing original VHS copy of Star Wars #6 that resides in the USGS dorm...Remember the days of VHS? I do.

In other news, I may have lost my camera at the summit of Mauna Loa from my epic camping trip earlier this week (which will be a post at some point, I promise), so for now I can't post pictures of my weekend adventures. A narrative will have to suffice.

The lava flows on the coast near Kalapana that are fed by Pu`u O`o have been incredibly active this past week, despite a deflation-inflation (DI) event last weekend that threatened to halt the downslope movement of the surface flows.

Earlier in the summer I went with my CSAV class to experience the lava for the first time, which involved an arduous uphill hike over tumuli in the intense heat of the early afternoon. However, last Sunday morning when I went out (with a certified HVO scientist, of course) the hike was an easy 5 minutes to get to the active flows. We mapped the fresh lobes with the GPS, walked over the flow that had cooled the day before, and then collected a few samples for ourselves. The flow was sluggish at the time, but over the next few days it moved about 400m towards the trailhead and the tourist viewing area.


Don't worry, I didn't actually eat my sample. The flows are actually quite a hazard, potentially, because they are encroaching on a forested kipuka and may cause serious forest fires. Also, the tourists might be able to see the flows from the viewing area, so the number of ignorant trespassers will likely triple in the next few days.

Here's Sarah K., Katie, me, and Sarah S. excited about lava!


The HVO scientists are predicting that the lava will actually reach the ocean because the flows are tubed (aka insulated) on the slope of the pali. Therefore, they can travel much greater distances than if they were exposed to the air.

Now, my lovely lava video.




All photos and movie footage are the property of the USGS.