Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Fresh Rock

Got a few photos from the Goddess Pele, during a chopper flight that was fortunate enough to coincide with the "Thanksgiving Eve" breakout (2007).

Here's the US Geological Survey's map of the new terrain, as well as one of their professional photos, taken ridiculously close.

For mere tourists, this is about the best we can do:

There's no scale to provide perspective, but as per the USGS's website, the perch channel pond in the top corner (dark) has a 6m ledge (20ft) and is around 50m wide (165ft), so the lively red one that's in the center of this image is probably well over 100 feet wide, and probably closer to 125ft.

Another view, of the lava's leading edge, can be found here.


We later did some hiking in Volcanos National Park over old (safer) lava beds and while geological aspects of it were interesting, even though "desolation" was expected, our normal expectations are nevertheless that if Mother Nature did it and we made it into a National Park, it should probably be pretty too. Sorry, but I do have to admit that the footing was a lot like walking over an old broken up macadam parking lot in an old US city, like Philadelphia or Newark. A few hours of walking with lousy footing over ridges and piles of black rocks, only to see...more black rocks! ... isn't a particularly appealing hike.


-hh

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