This landscape, beautiful in a harsh and barren way, looks utterly inhospitable to anything but viewing from a safe vantage. Yet underneath lies the cooked remains of part of the former Kalapana Gardens neighborhood, deeply buried by Kilauea’s East Rift Zone lava in 1990, with fresh coats applied in 2010 and again in the last few years. The deposit here was part of the final months of “61g”, which ended with source drainage toward the Leilani Estates eruption that began five months later, in April 2018. As with tornadoes, those who hunt lava outbreaks do not control what the phenomena do, and much prefer to witness them over open areas, instead of amidst destruction of structures and livelihoods.
4 W Kalapana HI (22 Dec 17) Looking S
19.3488, -155.048“Lava-ly” Landscape
This landscape, beautiful in a harsh and barren way, looks utterly inhospitable to anything but viewing from a safe vantage. Yet underneath lies the cooked remains of part of the former Kalapana Gardens neighborhood, deeply buried by Kilauea’s East Rift Zone lava in 1990, with fresh coats applied in 2010 and again in the last few years. The deposit here was part of the final months of “61g”, which ended with source drainage toward the Leilani Estates eruption that began five months later, in April 2018. As with tornadoes, those who hunt lava outbreaks do not control what the phenomena do, and much prefer to witness them over open areas, instead of amidst destruction of structures and livelihoods.
4 W Kalapana HI (22 Dec 17) Looking S
19.3488, -155.048