Author Topic: Earthquake on big island Ha. made new eruption Pahoa evacuated !!  (Read 52867 times)

KarenRei

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Re: Earthquake on big island Ha. made new eruption Pahoa evacuated !!
« Reply #150 on: May 26, 2018, 08:40:19 PM »
Lake Waiau is just a short hike from the summit, end of road. Most people don't see the trail head. It's a short walk, maybe 1/2 mile, but a little hard due to low oxygen levels.

Interesting, who'd thought it.  Oxygen?  We got taken in by an astronomer working in the first Keck observatory.   I was so winded I couldn't remember my name when he was introducing us to his friends sitting there at the monitors.  Truly magical.  The pix I took every 5 minutes during sunset are breathtaking.  I've never seen so much space junk and stuff float by in my life.

Good luck with Pele!   ???
Pele made that summit of Mauna Kea many millions of years ago. Yes it's strange to have a lake at the very top of a volcano. Nobody knows what the source of the water in that lake is. Totally baffling. There is water in it year round, and it's a very low rainfall area, and the water is not run off from anywhere. Now Pele is doing a bit of sculpturing in our area. It's looking around here like the dawn of creation.

Isn't it amazing seeing an area altered by a volcano?  After the Holuhraun eruption here it was like a totally different place.  "Wait, there wasn't a mountain here before..."  ;)  I think most people who've never been around active volcanism underestimate how *thick* lava flows can get (particularly a'a, which is our main type here).  And how how far from the source they can lay down these giant walls of lava.
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fruitlovers

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Re: Earthquake on big island Ha. made new eruption Pahoa evacuated !!
« Reply #151 on: May 27, 2018, 03:23:39 AM »
Lava has covered some 2700 acres so far, and it seems like it's just started. Lots of magma in this intrusion and the lava is starting to back up the rift and flowing out of previously inactive fissures. Many more houses in Leilani destroyed and others now in danger. Current fissures can't handle to volume currently going through or there is a plug somewhere in the pipe system causing the backup.
Oscar

KarenRei

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Re: Earthquake on big island Ha. made new eruption Pahoa evacuated !!
« Reply #152 on: May 27, 2018, 01:34:37 PM »
I had thought surely those were going to die, since the eastern fissures appeared so much more dominant, but clearly not.  Now PGV looks to be back under threat. :Þ


« Last Edit: May 27, 2018, 01:36:29 PM by KarenRei »
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nullzero

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Re: Earthquake on big island Ha. made new eruption Pahoa evacuated !!
« Reply #153 on: May 27, 2018, 01:36:29 PM »
Grow mainly fruits, vegetables, and herbs.

zands

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KarenRei

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Re: Earthquake on big island Ha. made new eruption Pahoa evacuated !!
« Reply #155 on: May 27, 2018, 05:23:09 PM »
I know what Icelanders would be thinking there  ;)  "Oooh, energy - and right next to an existing plant!  Quick, get us pipefitters and all the high-temperature steel pipe you can get your hands on!"  ;)
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fruitlovers

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Re: Earthquake on big island Ha. made new eruption Pahoa evacuated !!
« Reply #156 on: May 27, 2018, 05:30:46 PM »
That geothermal plant is gonners. Even if it is not completely covered by lava it will never be brought back into operation. Good riddens, it's not something the people here inside a residential area ever wanted. The company that ran it had a terrible trakc record of accidents and lying to the public, and fines from the government.
Oscar

KarenRei

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Re: Earthquake on big island Ha. made new eruption Pahoa evacuated !!
« Reply #157 on: May 27, 2018, 05:40:17 PM »
Indeed, looks like it'd take pretty heroic efforts to save it at this point.  From what I've seen in the news, they sound pretty resigned to it being lost - having already removed the working fluid for the plant, cooled all the wells, and filling in one that they couldn't cool sufficiently with drilling mud.  It is kind of weird that they built it right next to a residential area in the first place - even we don't do that.  :Þ
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fruitlovers

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Re: Earthquake on big island Ha. made new eruption Pahoa evacuated !!
« Reply #158 on: May 27, 2018, 05:45:52 PM »
Indeed, looks like it'd take pretty heroic efforts to save it at this point.  From what I've seen in the news, they sound pretty resigned to it being lost - having already removed the working fluid for the plant, cooled all the wells, and filling in one that they couldn't cool sufficiently with drilling mud.  It is kind of weird that they built it right next to a residential area in the first place - even we don't do that.  :Þ
Working fluid = 60,000 gallons of very flammable liquids. Guess what happens when molten lava hits that?  :o :o :o
Oscar

KarenRei

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Re: Earthquake on big island Ha. made new eruption Pahoa evacuated !!
« Reply #159 on: May 27, 2018, 06:27:35 PM »
Pentane is barely even a liquid; it boils off with almost any heat.  Which I would think would make it all the more dangerous (aka, easier to burn all at once).

Thankfully there's no obvious source of heat or ignition nearby.   Hmm, wait a minute...   ;)
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fruitlovers

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Re: Earthquake on big island Ha. made new eruption Pahoa evacuated !!
« Reply #160 on: May 27, 2018, 08:04:48 PM »
Pentane is barely even a liquid; it boils off with almost any heat.  Which I would think would make it all the more dangerous (aka, easier to burn all at once).

Thankfully there's no obvious source of heat or ignition nearby.   Hmm, wait a minute...   ;)
Rumor i heard, don't know if it's true, is that they have just as much pentane already inside the wells which could not be removed.
Took them 3 days to remove the stored 60,000 gallons of pentane. Great that they even had the time to do it before being flowed on.
Oscar

FrankDrebinOfFruits

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Re: Earthquake on big island Ha. made new eruption Pahoa evacuated !!
« Reply #161 on: May 28, 2018, 12:58:34 AM »
I heard that plant supplied one quarter of the big island's energy needs. What was the alternative source that they switched to?

KarenRei

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Re: Earthquake on big island Ha. made new eruption Pahoa evacuated !!
« Reply #162 on: May 28, 2018, 03:53:47 AM »
I heard that plant supplied one quarter of the big island's energy needs. What was the alternative source that they switched to?

All grids have backup power in case major plants go down; you cannot have "just enough" generation capacity and still have a stable grid.  Of course, it means more oil imports and less reserve against downtime, and higher generating costs.

If they wanted new generation capacity fast, you can't beat solar. Also, providing grid stability can also be done fast with grid-scale batteries (see the 129MW Tesla Australia project for an example).  You can even do it without using any land - again see Tesla/Australia with their under-development 250MW "virtual power plant", where they provide home-scale batteries and solar roofs at no cost to 50k homes, but the utility owns the power (for their effort, consumers are to get a ~30% discount).  But whatever their plan is, they should have already been working toward this from the moment they decided that they needed to evacuate the plant.
« Last Edit: May 28, 2018, 04:50:03 AM by KarenRei »
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fruitlovers

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Re: Earthquake on big island Ha. made new eruption Pahoa evacuated !!
« Reply #163 on: May 28, 2018, 05:18:22 AM »
Existing plants will import more fossil fuels to make up the difference in loss of geothermal plant. Solar panel installations would be nice, but there is no immediate plan for that, and they could certainly not produce overnight 25 percent of the slack lost.
Oscar

nullzero

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Re: Earthquake on big island Ha. made new eruption Pahoa evacuated !!
« Reply #164 on: May 28, 2018, 01:02:46 PM »
Great video of the lava eruption in Hawaii.

https://vimeo.com/272041704
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Daintree

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Re: Earthquake on big island Ha. made new eruption Pahoa evacuated !!
« Reply #165 on: May 28, 2018, 04:22:46 PM »
Wow. Impressive video.  Mama Earth is truly a living, breathing creature.
Just wish she weren't breathing on houses right now...

KarenRei

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Re: Earthquake on big island Ha. made new eruption Pahoa evacuated !!
« Reply #166 on: May 28, 2018, 06:16:32 PM »
Wow. Impressive video.  Mama Earth is truly a living, breathing creature.
Just wish she weren't breathing on houses right now...

That swimming pool shot is brilliant. It's like the old "boiling water over an open flame in a paper cup" trick - the water keeps the paper below the temperature where it could potentially catch fire.  There's a couple breaches, but overall it held its shape (and its water!) brilliantly. And even those breaches might be more from pressure than temperature.

Significant flow rates from this eruption.  I didn't realize that it was going all the way to the ocean in open air rather than in lava tubes.  That basalt is really moving.
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fruitlovers

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Re: Earthquake on big island Ha. made new eruption Pahoa evacuated !!
« Reply #167 on: May 28, 2018, 07:22:47 PM »
Wow. Impressive video.  Mama Earth is truly a living, breathing creature.
Just wish she weren't breathing on houses right now...
Swallowed another dozen homes last night.  :'( What's not often mentioned is that the property lots are turned into solid rock, all the plants incinerated. You don't just lose your house, you lose your whole property. Very hard to reclaim a property like that. But people here do it. It's been done in Kalapana, but takes many years and lots of energy.
Oscar

KarenRei

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Re: Earthquake on big island Ha. made new eruption Pahoa evacuated !!
« Reply #168 on: May 29, 2018, 03:55:33 AM »
Not good.



Quote
You don't just lose your house, you lose your whole property. Very hard to reclaim a property like that. But people here do it.

What's the typical pioneer species?  I imagine ingas would work if you wanted something with fruiting potential.

At least it'll mean you're less in the firing line the next time, as your house could be as much as a couple dozen meters higher elevation, depending on the flow thickness...
« Last Edit: May 29, 2018, 03:58:21 AM by KarenRei »
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fruitlovers

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Re: Earthquake on big island Ha. made new eruption Pahoa evacuated !!
« Reply #169 on: May 29, 2018, 05:26:38 AM »
Old lava flows more likely to be flowed over again. Elevation does not matter much if the lava is all layed down flat.
Typical pioneer species depend on type of lava. On a'a it is ohia, but they are very slow growing and are going through a lot of disease problems lately. Pahoehoe lava is extremely hard stuff, and takes very long time to  re establish plants on that.
« Last Edit: May 29, 2018, 05:33:13 AM by fruitlovers »
Oscar

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Re: Earthquake on big island Ha. made new eruption Pahoa evacuated !!
« Reply #170 on: May 29, 2018, 09:01:24 AM »
A long time ago, while on the big island, a real estate guy tried to convince me that the softer lave could simply be crushed down by heavy equipment and then you would bring in top soil.  Would something like that be practical?
We work with soil challenges here in CR, but not like that.
Also, we have plenty of active volcanoes but little production of lava.  Ash is the big issue here.  Lots of the best coffee growing areas and vegetable production is highly exposed to ash.
Suerte,
Peter

KarenRei

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Re: Earthquake on big island Ha. made new eruption Pahoa evacuated !!
« Reply #171 on: May 29, 2018, 12:55:26 PM »
Old lava flows more likely to be flowed over again. Elevation does not matter much if the lava is all layed down flat.
Typical pioneer species depend on type of lava. On a'a it is ohia, but they are very slow growing and are going through a lot of disease problems lately. Pahoehoe lava is extremely hard stuff, and takes very long time to  re establish plants on that.

My experience with lava flows here is that lava flows in bands; each flow creates a wall that directs subsequent flows to its side.  Only when it's directed a large enough  amount of lava through side paths (to the point where they're interfering with its ability to move downhill) does it then get the ability to flow over the original, more central paths.  But I suppose it depends on your lava properties and topography.  We tend to get really thick a'a flows here, dozens of meters near the edges and potentially hundreds near the craters (that said, pahoehoe happens - I've even got some old "fossilized" pahoehoe on my land - but is much rarer).

It's harder for me to make colonization comparisons because up here, the first thing to colonize - everywhere - is moss  ;)  Big thick blankets like pillows.  It doesn't care whether it's pahoehoe or aa.

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a real estate guy tried to convince me that the softer lave could simply be crushed down by heavy equipment and then you would bring in top soil.  Would something like that be practical?

Ehhhh..... technically possible, but I'd think that would cost a fortune.  I mean, that's how they build roads through it here, but they're not cheap. A'a is nasty stuff - hard to flatten, but very irregular so it's hard to fill too. Sometimes it's worse than others - I once walked on one flow front that would best be described as walking on a mix of broken vases and razor blades.  It wears down with time, though - but it's always this chunky, hard, bouldery mess.

Quote
Also, we have plenty of active volcanoes but little production of lava.  Ash is the big issue here.

Ironically we get that too here  ;)  Volcanoes that erupt through glaciers make ash even though they're basaltic, as the water makes it explosive. Our lava is also sometimes abnormally gassy (read about the Laki eruption for a really bad example. And while we're overwhelmingly basaltic, we have a small proportion of our volcanoes that are predominantly andesitic / rhyolitic (the most famous being Hekla and Askja), so they're explosive ashy things similar to what you're used to. It takes some interesting geology to get that in the middle of an ocean; it's secondary rhyolite, caused by basaltic magma separating out over time into an mafic fraction and a felsic fraction  :)  Hekla was thought in Europe in the Middle Ages to be a gate to Hell, and was often drawn in terrifying fashion on old maps; it had on several occasions created eruptions so ashy that they dusted the mainland.
« Last Edit: May 29, 2018, 01:19:50 PM by KarenRei »
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FrankDrebinOfFruits

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Re: Earthquake on big island Ha. made new eruption Pahoa evacuated !!
« Reply #172 on: May 29, 2018, 01:26:28 PM »
I wish I had more rock at my place. I found maybe a few dozen 1 foot diameter rocks. They have tons of rock on the west side of Kauai.  I would love to make some retaining walls, walking paths, privacy fences, landscaping etc. I have gone so far to lava rock concrete stamps (almost cheaper to get cement than buy and truck rock).  Then I think about the extreme opposite (i.e. all rock and no dirt), and it is scary if you are trying to grow stuff. Not sure which problem is worse, paying for rock or paying for dirt. I think I would rather pay for rock, then every time I dig I hit rock.  I was visiting someone in Kona and had to bare root the trees, and they were so excited to have the soil from the pots. I had this look  :o being from Kauai, there is so much dirt.

This thread has been an eye opener, especially the last few posts about the different types of flows. Thanks!

KarenRei

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Re: Earthquake on big island Ha. made new eruption Pahoa evacuated !!
« Reply #173 on: May 29, 2018, 01:43:30 PM »
I wish I had more rock at my place

Haha, you're free to come take some of mine!  Just leave whatever jasper/calcite/opal/quartz/zeolites you find in the process behind  ;)

Quote
Then I think about the extreme opposite (i.e. all rock and no dirt), and it is scary if you are trying to grow stuff.

You have to work at it, that's for sure.  I'm really sore right now because for the past several days I've been spreading phosphate, and I'm only just getting started. On the less-steep ravine/canyon walls I have to climb up and down with buckets of fertilizer to get to the areas I can't throw to from the top.  And you can't spread it all at once either, because sandy/rocky soil doesn't hang onto minerals well. On the upside, it's *super* aerated!  ;)  Excepting near the underground streams and the iron bogs that is.  BTW, if you've never seen an iron bog, they're really curious things.  For the first couple years of owning my land I honestly thought I had a couple oil slicks where someone had just dumped their motor oil.  Basically it means that uphill from me, pyrite is breaking down to form sulfuric acid, which dissolves (ferric) iron from the basalt, and then when it gets to air, special bacteria oxidize it, leaving these black, iridescent slicks on the surface (goethite, if I remember right) and brown iron muck (limonite + decomposed bacteria) on the bottom.

And wow have I ever gotten sidetracked from the conversation here....

« Last Edit: May 29, 2018, 01:47:11 PM by KarenRei »
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FrankDrebinOfFruits

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Re: Earthquake on big island Ha. made new eruption Pahoa evacuated !!
« Reply #174 on: May 29, 2018, 01:49:08 PM »
BTW, if you've never seen an iron bog, they're really curious things.  For the first couple years of owning my land I honestly thought I had a couple oil slicks where someone had just dumped their motor oil.  Basically it means that uphill from me, pyrite is breaking down to form sulfuric acid, which dissolves (ferric) iron from the basalt, and then when it gets to air, special bacteria oxidize it, leaving these black, iridescent slicks on the surface (goethite, if I remember right) and brown iron muck (limonite + decomposed bacteria) on the bottom.

And wow have I ever gotten sidetracked from the conversation here....
Does this "iron bog" have an awful foul smell? I came across something like this recently, and I was very curious to the cause.  It happens near a swamp area of mine.