Volcano and Lava Stuff

Did you hear a scream of raging frustration ringing throughout the land?  If you did, that was me, fighting, struggling, losing entirely my battle with the Blogger editing program.  Oh, how I loathe it!  I would like very much for you to picture this as a very well-organized, sensibly ordered post about our visit to the volcano and the lava flow.  It is NOT organized or sensible, but that's because I am being utterly defeated by Blogger.  SO... Here are some pictures and stories, anyway. 

Here are two really excellent examples of a type of lava formation called pahoehoe.  It is defined as having a smooth, flowing, ropy or twisted appearance.  Pretty nifty-looking rocks, huh?  We paid extra-close attention to the details of the volcano and lava flow because Gregory is researching volcanoes for a school paper and oral presentation, and we wanted to be sure that we collected as much first-hand information as possible while we had such a rare chance!

And this is what USED to be a road sign.  Back when there was a road, and not just a 6-foot-thick covering of lava.  The place where we were standing to see all this lava was near a 6-week-old lava flow that was hardened, but still radiating lots and lots of heat.  The active, red, flowing lava was much farther up the hill from where we were, and it wasn't practical for us to get closer to it. 



The little glowing dots on the hillside show the path that lava is traveling from the active vent toward the ocean.  Unfortunately, we would have had to pay BIG bucks for a walking tour to get close to the flowing lava, and the guides were not professionals, geologists, volcanologists, or anyone else who would know for sure how close was "close enough".  The guides were just ordinary citizens who happened to be the unfortunate landowners whose property was covered up by the lava.  Soooo... we looked at the glowing lava from afar.

Here is Astrid's better photo of the glowing lava, taken with a more sophisticated camera

 

There is a type of lava called A'a, which is very jagged, rough, pointy, sharp, and irregular.  It is the kind of thing where you just know you had better keep your footing while walking across it, or you'll be leaving a significant amount of your skin behind.  For that reason, I like to call it "Uh-oh lava", instead of a'a.  And here you can see that Gregory got off VERY lightly after his close encounter with the a'a.

*sigh* There are more pictures that I wanted to add from our volcano and lava viewing adventures, but Blogger is completely stonewalling me.  So ... I'm going to quit while I'm ahead and just publish this.