A Brief Orientation...

...just in case people can't place the locations that I'm talking about, here's a detailed map of the area around Kilauea:

I'm currently living in Volcano, the nearest village to the caldera. Pu`u O`o is the current outbreak area along the East Rift Zone, and you can see where Kalapana used to be. The last day of physical volcanology was spent at Kilauea Iki (the reddish area).

From my ground deformation classes during the past few days I've learned that the entire side of the island south of the East Rift Zone is steadily slipping southward on a decollement fault. This means that if the fault motion continues, the south side of the island will collapse into the ocean. If this collapse occurs suddenly, the motion will likely cause a gigantic tsunami that is sure to devastate the other Hawaiian islands (within 20-30 minutes) as well as other countries along the Pacific Rim.

It would be easier to determine what the motion is along the decollement fault if we knew what was going on ~15-20 km offshore (where a lot of the action is, supposedly). However, right now there's not a great way to determine submarine deformation due to complications arising from using acoustic waves to get a position on the sea floor. All we can do is use static or kinematic GPS stations on land to quantify how much each south section is moving due to tectonic forces.

In other non-geeky, non-geology news, here's a picture of the entire CSAV group on lava day with our two instructors, Wendy (physical volcanology) and Chris (seismology):

The one on the far right is my friend Katie from Carleton, can you find me? Hint: Look for the one with extra attitude.

Random thoughts:
-Today I got an awesome stocking-high tan line (aka sunburn line) from hiking and neglecting sunscreen on my legs. If it sticks I'll take a picture and post it...
-I'm looking forward to Kona, white sand beaches, and civilization tomorrow!