Me too 🤩

I can see it! Are you perhaps thinking about a pre-grunge hair band, a chill solo piano album, a 70s heavy metal reboot, a once- alt U2 style swerve to the mainstream, or something else?

Wow, yes. Those are vivid memories. I'm sure it was unpleasant. That was an especially tense week or two between the big South Flank earthquake, Puu Oo shutting off, shallow rifting earthquakes migrating down rift and through the highway, fissure 1 opening up in leilani, with 21 more to follow.

I'm sorry to hear it. That 2018 eruption on the distal rift zone ended roughly 50 years of periodic activity somewhere on the East rift, and came after more than a century of no activity down there. Unfortunately, the county and state allowed people to build homes in high hazard areas

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🧪🌋⚒️And this is what the scene of my prior post it looks like in daylight a few hours later, with the surface flows paused......

Yes, agreed. The eruption was in 2022 , so things have recovered quite a bit by now.

The volcano was uninhabited, but it was very scary for the people on the nearby islands. On the Capitol Island, they suffered ashfall, and a large tsunami, and broken national and international submarine telecommunication cables. Relief was slow to get to the islands, bringing covid with it.

it sounds like a lot. I'm so sorry. Tonga is such a wonderful, laidback place, but every time I was there we could connect to the world if we wanted to. Not having that opportunity must have been difficult.

I am so sorry to hear that. My condolences. It must have felt very isolated there as well, with the cable breaks.

There is often something to love, and something not to love, at active volcanoes. The HTTH landscape (islands and whatnot) has evolved a lot in the past 15-20 yrs. Until 2022 I would have said Nukualofa was a generally safe distance to watch HTTH from; is that where you were?

Cool stuff. Another characteristic of Nakapuu lavas, which are also some of the youngest of the koolau shield, is that it has among the highest SiO2 of any hawaiian tholeiites. We used to use a lava from over by the lighthouse as an internal standard in the lab when I was working at UH.

Those quick flashes are stobe lights for digital stills. We never saw lightening per se. But viewed from 50m above, using Jason's former support vehicle Medea, and with all ROV lights off, we could see bright flashes from the sea bed... Probably hot gas discharges.

In this time of US federal gov't shutdown, let's remember that public funding (NSF, NOAA, ONR) made that view possible. Fieldwork is often unpredictable, humbling, exhilarating and unforgettable.. and necessary in so many science disciplines. (3/3) 🧪🌊🌋

In 2009 we watched molten flowing lava, explosive flashes, and a car-sized rock tumble past the camera at #WestMata submarine volcano, on a live feed from WHOI’s ROV Jason (~1,200 m below). This was a major scientific first. (2/3) 🧪🌊🌋

It a real experience when you see, feel, smell, and hear lava flowing. I hope you get it soon.

I sorta feel the same about my first intro. I'd worked almost exclusively at basalt rift-zone and hotspot volcanoes when we detected signs of a submarine eruption in 2008. Part of the pitch to NSF to fund our 2009 response was that boninites could be there, so I studied up, and it became a real gift