I woke up in the very early morning in a panicked state. I grasped around for something, anything, but I had no inkling as to why. It was like it was instinctual. After I had calmed myself down, I managed to fall back asleep. And that was that – for a while.
During breakfast, my confusion was somewhat cleared. The field camp instructors had asked us if we felt the earthquake this morning. Apparently, there were two of them: one of magnitude 4 at about 3:30am and another of a lower magnitude a few hours later. I can’t say for sure, but one of those earthquakes might have been what woke me up today. They were centered a bit north of here, in the valley between Kilauea and Mauna Loa. Apparently, for the past few days, there’s been a bit of an earthquake swarm around the volcano. Could this be the sign of an impending eruption? Maybe. Either way, the magma is moving down there, and it’s getting restless.
Perhaps, then, there was no better place to go than back to the Koa’e Fault Zone. This time, we were tasked with actually measuring the displacement along the faults. Using tape measures, we measured the horizontal distance between pre-placed bolts in the ground, called crack stations. To measure vertical displacement, we used a high-precision optical level. It was pretty complicated, so I’ll just show a photo:
Traveling on this terrain with the equipment was precarious, considering this was one of the smaller obstacles we had to deal with:
Under no circumstances did I look down while crossing these things. They just go on forever, at least until it’s too dark to see what’s down there. It’s dizzying.
It was a long day of work, but I enjoyed it more than yesterday’s task. I like having a direct goal, based on quantitative observations. During the day, a small rash developed on my fingers. I’m honestly not sure what it could be – a bug bite, a plant rash, or a sunburn. I got a Benadryl stick at the general store, which seems to eradicate any of the itchiness.
After getting back to camp, we started working through our data and writing up our reports. Then, feeling tired from all the work, I went on a walk through the jungle along the caldera. The almost-full moon beautifully illuminated the massive crater. Even though the eruption has stopped, there is still an eerie pale glow in the base as steam still rises. It was a surreal experience, and while I couldn’t photograph the view well, I think I’ll remember it forever. Hanging out on the edge of a cliff, laughing and talking about random things, musings about the natural world and how it works, guessing how far down the cliff drops… it’s one of those moments on par with my memories in GrÃmsey. It felt like I was sitting at the edge of the world, looking down into the endless darkness. Even the stars above looked more inviting. I’ve been to a lot of places that have made me feel small and insignificant, and this was no different. This time, however, it was more of a notion of groundedness, like I was close to a portal to the inside of the Earth. I guess that’s why the native Hawaiians say this is where Pele lives. You can feel something powerful here.
Suddenly, one of the fumaroles were illuminated in a bright light. Being curious, we headed towards it, joking that maybe the volcano erupted again. It ended up just being a car’s headlights, but it did put into perspective for me how invisible there steam vents and fumaroles are in the night. I’d have had no idea the billowing gas was coming from there without that light.
As we walked back to camp through the jungle, I caught sight of an amazing shooting star. It might be the biggest one I have ever seen in my life. In fact, for a split second I thought it was a downed plane or helicopter. Maybe I was seeing things, but I thought it seemed to glow slightly green at the tip. It was breathtaking, and a great way to end the night.
Anika Tullos 