HOORAY, THE BIG ISLAND VOLCANO ERUPTION IS ALMOST OFFICIALLY OVER

This blog site was created at the end of April 2008.  My plan was to continue this effort for a decade and move on to something else, so on 30 April 2018 I posted:

     MY FINAL DAILY BLOG

Well, on 3 May 2018 Kilauea Volcano erupted in the lower Puna region.  So the next day my blog site came back to life with:

     PUNA AGAIN BECOMES THE MOST DANGEROUS SPOT ON EARTH

I felt compelled to report on this natural disaster because much of my life has been linked to geothermal energy and volcanic eruptions.  From that posting:

It was on 3January1983that Kilauea Volcano first erupted.  I just happened to be golfing at the Volcano Golf Course that day, when, on the tenth hole we felt the ground shudder:

Soon thereafter, we saw fountains of lava a couple of hundred yards high only a few hundred yards from where we stood.  This was the beginning of the current Kilauea eruption, which has now continuously gone on for three decades PLUS FIVE YEARS AND FOUR MONTHS.

Thus, this eruption has now been ongoing for 35 years and four months.

As of today, almost exactly 36 years and one month.  But a decade before that, my very first research project at the University of Hawaii was on geothermal energy.  Again to quote:

In the 1970's I suffered from numerous mosquito bites while I helped explore for and succeeded in tapping geothermal energy in Puna:

While I was the reservoir engineer in the mid-1970's with UH-Hilo Professor Bill Chen on HGP-A, one of the only examples of anything renewable in Hawaii that actually worked the first time, my interest was more on the total product potential, as I helped get started the Community Geothermal Technology Program, also known as Noi'i O Puna (NOP), or the geothermal equivalent of the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority for OTEC on the other side of the island. 

By August 7 of last year:

• land covered by lava:  13.7 square miles
• new land created in the ocean:  875 acres
• homes destroyed:  716
• recovery cost:  more than $800 million

Usually, three months after stoppage, the USGS officially announces that that phase of eruption is over.  This time it took five months to make this declaration.  Well, maybe not even that, for the morning newspaper indicated:

HVO scientists aren’t ready to declare the more recent eruption done yet, even though fissure 8, the most active of the vents, has quieted down and collapses at the Kilauea summit have subsided since August.

Puu Oo’s six longest hiatuses lasted from one to two months and occurred in between fountaining episodes in the first two years, according to the “Volcano Watch” report. In 1992, 1993, 1996 and 1997, there were eruption pauses of 10, eight, nine and 24 days, respectively.

As recently as 2011 there were pauses of 18 and six days

And, of course, even if this phase is over, Kilauea Volcano remains active, for scientists continue to confirm of magma flows deep in the system.  At least the alert level is now Yellow.

Advisory alert or not, at least the people of Puna are breathing easier.  In Honolulu, we are thankful that the volcanic haze that once regularly wafted over Oahu is now completely gone.  I can now golf during Kona weather.

About our Air Quality Index:

India and China have horrendously high indexes:

Click on those maps to read those numbers, but, for example:

• Honolulu:              25
• Jinjhou (China):  999
• Beijing (China):  220
• Luknow (India):  668
• Delhi     (India):  266

The official numerical value only goes up to 500, which is already hazardous.

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