Kealakekua Bay

Kealakekua Bay is an area along the western coast of Hawaii of steep layered basaltic cliff walls. The basalt comes from the now dormant shield volcano, Hualālai.(www.geog.nau.edu)

Volcanic Map of Big Island (www.geog.nau.edu)

Kealakekua Bay

Kealakekua Bay – Black and White beach basalt

Kealakekua Bay has a long history. Hikiau Heiau was a luakini temple of Ancient Hawaii at the south end of the bay, at coordinates 19°28′31″N 155°55′9″W, associated with funeral rites. The large platform of volcanic rock was originally over 16 feet high, 250 feet long, and 100 feet wide. The sheer cliff face called Pali Kapu O Keōua overlooking the bay was the burial place of Hawaiian royalty. The name means “forbidden cliffs of Keōua” in honor of Keōua Nui, sometimes known as the “father of kings” since many rulers were his descendants. The difficulty in accessing the cliff kept the exact burial places secret.(Wikipedia) It is now a Hawaiian State park and it is also the place where Captian Cook landed on the island. (www.geog.nau.edu)

The Bay is accessable only by boat or foot trail and harbors one of the State’s underwater parks. This 315-acre marine conservation district is lined with a vibrant healthy reef ecosystem. Abundant fish swim about the shallow corals that dip steeply away from shore toward deeper water. (www.geog.nau.edu)

Entrance to the 315-acre underwater marine conservation district

I didn’t know about the importance of the Kealakekua Bay before coming to Hawaii. I was brought there by friends as a great snorkeling place and only upon arrival did I see how interesting it was from a geological perspective. The Hawaiian people used the platforms and terrain of the basalt to hold their sacred dead. Back into the arms of the god of

HAIDES (Hades) the King of the Underworld

(www.theoi.com)

HAIDES (Hades) the Greek King of the Underworld, the god of death and the dead and god of the Hadean Eon, the Earth’s birth, Earth’s first eon and where we all began.

Papakōlea Beach

Green Sand!!

While at the Big Island of Hawaii, I was very lucky to have been able to visit a green sand beach!

Papakōlea Beach is located in a bay half circled by Puʻu Mahana, a cinder cone formed over 49,000 years ago and is associated with the southwest rift of Mauna Loa. Since its last eruption, the cinder cone has partially collapsed and been partially eroded by the ocean. (Wikipedia)

Papakolea Beach

Olivine is a common mineral component of Hawaiian lavas and one of the first crystals to form as magma cools. Olivine is locally known as “Hawaiian Diamond” and is notably found in Oʻahu’s famous Diamond Head landmark. The source of the green coloration of the beach sands is due to the olivine crystals which are winnowed from the eroding headland by the action of the sea. Olivine, being denser and tougher than the ash fragments, glass and black pyroxene of the rest of the rocks and lava flows, tends to accumulate on the beach whereas the usual volcanic sand is swept out to sea. Eventually the minerals will be washed away as well and the beach will look like any other. But as of now there is a plentiful supply in the cinder cone. (Wikipedia)

The last lava flow in the area ended over 10,000 years ago, making the area one of the more stable features in the geologically turbulent Kaʻū region. (USGS)

Close up of the olivine

Happy Olivine 🙂

My birthday is in August and I am a Leo, so olivine has a double meaning for me in that olivine is a version of my birthstone (peridot – when of gem quality).(Wikipedia) I am still so especially happy to have been able to visit such a rare beach!

Kilauea Volcano

The volcano of Kilauea is on the Big Island of Hawaii and it is amazing to see!

Hawaii Volcano Map (USGS)

On December 17, 2011 I was able to visit the volcano for the first time and this sign was at the front gate.

The entrance has a warning! Of course, it only added to the excitement of seeing the volcano for the first time!

The first look!

“The caldera itself has no Hawaiian name other than Kīlauea but houses the famous crater, Halema`uma`u; “hale” is a house, “ma`uma`u” a type of fern. Kamapua`a, a jilted suitor of Pele, is said to have built a house of ferns over Halema`uma`u to keep Pele from escaping her home and causing eruptions. The ploy failed.” (USGS.gov)

Halema`uma`u (The Destroyed House of Ferns )

Kilauea is a shield volcano it has had 61 eruptions, not counting the continuous lava-lake activity in Halema`uma`u crater which has been continuously erupting since January 3, 1983. (USGS.gov)

• Dimension: 6 x 6 km (outermost faults), 3 x 5 km (main depression)
• Depth: 165 m deep
• Age: probably several incremental collapses 500-210 years ago (USGS.gov)

Estimated Age of First Eruption of Kīlauea is 300,000-600,000 years ago. (USGS.gov)

The oldest dated rocks are 23,000 years old. (USGS.gov)

Since 1952 there have been 34 eruptions, and since January 1983 eruptive activity has been continuous along the east rift zone. All told, Kīlauea ranks among the world’s most active volcanoes and may even top the list. (USGS.gov)

Happy proof that we survived the volcanic gases!

Plate Tectonics in Action

California has a very exciting example of plate tectonics in motion. It is one of the reasons I wanted to study Geology. Big plates moving around on a liquid center?? How can there not be gigantic collisions with epic outcomes?? So fun!!

California’s San Andreas Fault is an exposed and obvious example of a transform plate boundary. A transform plate boundary is where one lithospheric plate, the Pacific plate, is trying to slide North past the Southern moving North American plate. Not creating new plating, nor destroying what already exists, the plates truly live the chill California vibe of live and let live. But when the plates do have their gigantic collisions they shatter and fold the borders of their plates in epic ways that can cause earthquakes that can be felt throughout the lithospheric plates. (Wicander, Historical Geology) Shown below is an exposed example of the extreme folding the rocks go through as the Pacific and North American plates move past each other.

Folding of the San Andreas Fault

more folding exposed

Sideways folding!!

The Geoengineering Option

Geoengineering in Foreign Policy </a<

I addressed the aspect of Geoengineering as a new concept in my previous blog and now in this article it is time to get down to the business of how to use the collective tools of geoengineering in a positive way that creates intended results of reduction of carbon dioxide levels.

” As with a bathtub that has a large faucet and a small drain, the only practical way to lower the level is by dramatically cutting the inflow.” is what the author, David G. Victor asserts. The statement is sound but the assumptions show a lack of awareness of the larger dynamics at play in the global environment. For example, the amazon rainforest emits its own large load of carbon dioxide everyday only to reabsorb it in the respiration process of the forest thus creating its own contribution to the weather patterns of the world. (http://video.pbs.org/video/2334144059/) Nations seeding clouds for rain and small localized efforts may provide temporary relief of lack of rain or may encourage a favored weather pattern for the region subsidizing the efforts but I have reservations relying on the labor and financial efforts to be exerted on local resources in that way.
The author is a lawyer. I am highly suspect of any activities that are delegated from our highly restrictive and wasteful developed nation to place resource burdens on less “developed” regions.
My thought on the concept of geoengineering (as it is thus far) as a solution to global warming is that it is egotistical. Egotistical of humans who are always so ready to micromanage an Earth that provided for itself quite well without us. Sometimes less is better. Why can’t we be more patient and advocate quiet methods of non-exploitation and non-exploration of anymore of the Earths regions?

Geoengineering

United Nations

There is an article that appeared in Foreign Affairs, March 2013, regarding Geoengineering (which I will publish in the next post). I hadn’t heard the term before and it sounded kind of quacky to me. Quacky, as in geoengineering seemed like it was a term that belonged on late night talk radio, along with alien sightings and ghost recordings. Since humans have only appeared in the last 6 seconds of the 24 hour geological time clock of the history of Earth, how were humans going to “engineer” anything to affect change for the better?? My degree is in International Relations so I like to keep up with global issues and dynamics of negotiations between nations and this is a new concept to contemplate for me. I usually find it exciting when governments convene to solve global problems rather than trying to punish nations for international strife and that now there is a window to do something globally to help the Earth in a geological way?? I am very very interested!

Geologic Time Scale (Wikipedia)

The problem agreed upon is that there is global climate change. As summarized in the title of Conference (United Nations Climate Change Conference in Doha, Qatar) (http://www.iisd.ca/vol12/enb12567e.html) but also the process change in the structure of negotiations of the usual United Nations conferences tells us the entire globe is affected. The United Nations has six principal organs: General Assembly (the main deliberative assembly); the Security Council (for deciding certain resolutions for peace and security); the Economic and Social Council (for assisting in promoting international economic and social cooperation and development); the Secretariat (for providing studies, information, and facilities needed by the UN); the International Court of Justice (the primary judicial organ); and the United Nations Trusteeship Council (which is currently inactive). Other prominent UN System agencies include the World Health Organization (WHO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations) As can be seen, the only general agreement of issues between nations previously have been of peace and hunger. That there is now a conference of the UN for climate change alludes to the fact that all nations are feeling the effects of the change in carbon dioxide levels globally.

This is a tenuous precipice to be on since humans really cannot know consequences to affecting environmental change. We have established the ending of the Proterozoic Eon on mass extinctions of multi-celled organisms, I hope we don’t create a new obvious chapter of another new eon based upon our extinctions.

Blue Mountains in Idaho

According to our class textbook, Geologic evidence indicates that more than 25% of the entire Pacific Coast from Alaska to Baja California consists of accreted terranes. Estimates are that more than 100 different sized terranes have been added to North America’s western margin. (Wicander, Historical Geology, p.292).*

Map of Accreted terranes

Through the aforementioned process of accretion, the Blue Mountains of Idaho were built. In the Phanerozoic time, subduction of Pacific Ocean plates beneath North America and has resulted in the accretion of crustal fragments to the western margin of the continent. Three major terranes comprise the Blue Mountains, these are Permian to Triassic fragments of oceanic island arcs, continental fringing arcs, and various other subduction-related stuff that was amalgamated, and underwent Late Triassic metamorphism and Triassic-Jurassic sedimentation, before collision with the North American margin. (Digital Geology of Idaho website). The resulting collision then became the orogeny of the mountain building of the Blue Mountains of Idaho.

Blue Mountains – Idaho (Wikipedia, Blue Mountain Eco-region)

*Remember that the word “terranes” differ from the general description of the word “terrain” (as in a “hilly terrain”) because the geologic evocation of the word includes the lithosphere as a reference. Lithosphere which includes “fossil content, stratigraphy, structural trends and paleomagnetic properties.” (Wicander, Historical Geology p.57).

Vasquez Rocks

As a field trip in October 2012, I was able to visit Vasquez Rocks while being taught what a Brunton compass can do. The goal was to take the readings of the rocks to figure out the angle of tilt of the large Vasquez rocks on a 360 degree scale.

The subject:

Vasquez Rocks

The tool:

Brunton Compass

The culprits:

Abraham trying to teach us the readings of the Brunton

we had fun trading off reading the Brunton.

Figuring out who was going to go next

Ack! Snake!

Ack!

Most of the readings were in the 32 degree to 45 degree tilt range.

Vasquez Rocks

Eons

Geologic time is divided into units so that we, as short lived humans, can make sense of it. There are four Eons: Hadean, Archean, Proterozoic and Phanerozic.

The Geologic Eons of Time

What is so obviously a human bias is that the first three Eons (where we didn’t exist yet) are lumped up into one big category as the Precambrian. As far as I can tell it is mostly dismissed because there isn’t much for us as humans to study and look at, unless you were really into stromatolites

Stromatolites

or Archea (lived in the extreme habitats of Earth in very salty and hot ocean water)

Halobacteria

or

Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic cells

Without the existence of these basic building blocks of more complex life on Earth, we wouldn’t exist. It is just too bad that they aren’t as respected as much as Dinosaurs or the Cro-Magnon.

(Photos and information sources: Idaho Museum of Natural History and Wikipedia websites)

Hadean Eon

It is great that there is an entire missing chapter of the Earth’s history. Great!

According to the textbook “Historical Geology” by Reed Wicander, ..”we have no geologic record for the first 600 million years.” (pg.151) Yippee! I don’t think we, as humans, need to know everything.

Hadean Earth

I cannot get enough of the Hadean Eon.

Look at how beautiful the Earth was in her formative years!

Completely new, without crusts, before the moon and before it differentiated into a core and mantle (pg. 151).

According to Theoi Greek Mythology the word Hadean is a derivation of the Greek God named HAIDES (Aides, Aidoneus, or Hades) he was the King of the Underworld, the god of death and the dead. He presided over funeral rites and defended the right of the dead to due burial. Haides was also the god of the hidden wealth of the earth, from the fertile soil with nourished the seed-grain, to the mined wealth of gold, silver and other metals. (source: http://www.theoi.com) Since Greek thought of the underworld had an understanding that metals had to be mined out from under Haides, I wonder if the Greeks were much more circumspect to the Earth than we are today?

HAIDES (Hades) the King of the Underworld

I love that there is a whole Eon of time that is a mystery and allows many more unanswered questions than answers.