Dispatches from Kīlauea: Reflections on the Eruption | Michigan ...

Numerous Michigan Tech alumni and faculty are part of the response and research effort
on Hawaii’s Big Island.
Volcanoes are an ongoing source of fear and fascination for humanity. The heat and
destructive power are both harbingers of destruction and heralds of creation. Kīlauea,
Hawaii’s youngest and the world’s hottest volcano, has been erupting constantly since
1983, but in the past month the eruption has grown exponentially in size and power.
Alumni, past post-doctoral researchers and faculty have all played a part in the Kīlauea
eruption response, including Greg Waite, John Lyons, David Schneider, Verity Flower,
Tricia Nadeau, Jay Wellik and Matt Patrick.
The volcano’s eruption has been called a once-in-a-generation opportunity for scientific
research, but it has also been hugely disruptive and damaging to communities and area
tourism. The volcanologists, geologists, geochemists and other scientists who have
been called to Hawaii’s Big Island are there to aid the state’s emergency response
team. They are also there to research volcanoes to improve future eruption response.
Many of these same people are now being called upon to assist with response to the
June 3 Volcán de Fuego eruption in Guatemala.
Response
Greg Waite, associate professor of geological and mining engineering and sciences, was on sabbatical
at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory when the shield volcano began erupting with increased intensity.
“I came out here with some research projects in mind and I’m still hoping to complete
those projects, but when the eruptions started and activity really picked up at the
end of April, I became more involved in day-to-day monitoring as well,” Waite says.
Heeding the call from USGS, geologists are in the field—especially the rift zone where
explosive eruptions are occurring—around the clock. While the majority of the rift
zone is in the national park, which is closed, the situation is different in the lower
east rift zone where fissures are opening up in neighborhoods.
“Some homeowners are waiting until the last minute to leave their homes as lava approaches.
First responders are waiting for USGS to provide updated information so they can plan
for evacuations,” Waite says. “It’s dynamic; changing from day to day. It requires
a lot of people to keep track, taking part in watch shifts all hours of the day and
night.”
This June 3 photo from a 7 a.m. helicopter overflight shows advancing lava from the
fissure 8 flow front near Kapoho Bay, Hawaii. The flow front's advance rates were
estimated at an average of 250 feet/hour (76 m/hr), and as of 7 a.m. the flow was
500 yards (457 m) from the ocean. Image credit: US Geological Survey
By the morning of June 5, the fissure 8 lava flow front had completely filled Kapoho
Bay. Image credit: US Geological Survey
Responders are essentially reacting to two different eruptions—explosions and gas
emissions. Ash is hazardous to aviation and health, as is sulfur gas emissions. Both
air quality and encroaching lava create ongoing threats to private property and infrastructure,
including a geothermal electric plant and cell phone towers.
David Schneider, who earned his doctorate from the Department of Geological and Mining
Engineering and Sciences at Michigan Tech in 2000, is a research geophysicist for
the US Geological Survey (USGS) at the Alaska Volcano Observatory, and was deployed to Hawaii to help assist with disaster response at the request
of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“This is an eruption that has posed significant and widespread impacts to local communities.
When large events happen there aren’t enough staff at any of the five USGS volcano
observatories to handle the situation. We get deployed to help out each other,” Schneider
says.
Schneider’s expertise is in volcanic ash and explosive eruptions. He’s one of 15 USGS
scientists from the mainland who have been brought to Hawaii to help with the eruption
response.
Schneider has been working with the Hawaiian Emergency Management Agency (HI-EMA)
in its emergency operations center located at Diamond Head on the island of Oahu.
He works within a large team of state and federal emergency management specialists
to provide near-real-time information from the scientists involved in eruption response
to HI-EMA and the Hawaii Governor’s Office. He also works with state and federal agencies
and public health officials to discuss hazard mitigation from sulfur dioxide emissions
and ash-rich explosions.
“We answer questions throughout the day and try to take some of the scientific information
and explain in a way that makes sense to non-volcanologists,” he says.
The incredible amount of data scientists are grappling with presents its own problem;
processing data from sensors, satellites and other measurements takes teams of people
to create knowledge from information and apply it to a rapidly changing situation.
Schneider speculates that the application of the knowledge regarding lava hazards
may have had some unintended consequences for people living in the lower east rift
zone.
“In 1992, the USGS published a lava flow hazard map detailing the five hazard zones
on the island of Hawaii. It may be that these lava hazard maps, which were important
to publish, may have actually contributed in some way to people living there because
it made that property more affordable,” he says.
Hawaiian real estate is infamously expensive, and neighborhoods like the Leilani Estates
were affordable to working-class residents, who frequently couldn’t get mortgages
or homeowners insurance on the houses because of their location in the highest lava
hazard zone. But the building sites were reasonably priced, so area residents took
a gamble to secure affordable housing.
“By having scientists say this is a dangerous place, the economic side of things was
that property was more affordable,” Schneider says. “All over the world people with
fewer means end up living in the most hazardous areas. People get pushed into places
economically they wouldn’t necessarily choose to be. It remains to be seen to what
extent publication of hazard zone maps may have played in the development of the region
impacted by lava flows, but it is a topic that deserves further research.”
Schneider said that while the research opportunities at the eruption are exciting,
the scientists feel sadness for those who have lost their homes to the lava flow.
Research
The Kīlauea eruption is more than lava fountains and ash clouds. Volcanoes are part
of complex geophysical systems, and those who research them seek to learn more about
how the systems interact. Kīlauea is particularly complex. It is erupting from two
areas that are 25 miles apart and the stresses within the crust at the different eruption
sites are also influenced by the magnitude 6.9 seismic event the Big Island experienced
May 4.
“Earth scientists in general think a lot about processes,” Waite said. “We don’t think
of the Earth as a static body. This is a very complicated system underneath Kīlauea
that takes people with many specialties working together to understand what’s happening
and how things are changing to try to determine what happens next. It’s amazingly
interesting trying to figure out what’s going on and watching this unfold in real
time.”
Waite researches magma movement and gas emissions through the lens of seismic and
infrasound (low frequency sound) data. In fall 2017 he set out an array of infrasound
sensors at the crater of Kīlauea‘s lava lake to “hear” the volcano because most energy
they radiate into atmosphere is below a frequency humans can hear.
“I got some really good data in the fall and early on this year from arrays in good
locations,” Waite said. “With the USGS’s permanent seismic network, those showed clearly
the main source of the tremor was degassing at the lava lake. We could track very
clearly where the gases were coming out of the lava lake from the infrasound.”
Unfortunately, in the past month the sensors have stopped working, likely because
the solar panels that provide them power are covered in volcanic ash, and it’s too
dangerous for Waite to dust them off, given their proximity to the expanding crater.
Waite says that at this point the volcano doesn’t show signs of slowing. Since 1983,
the overall eruption has periodically increased and decreased given a deep supply
of magma in the Earth’s mantle below the volcano. As long as that supply continues,
so will the eruptions. Waite said there could be periods of lower activity for years
or even decades, but the eruption will resume and continue until the Pacific tectonic
plate moves Hawaii island off of the mantle hotspot and a new volcano south of the
island becomes the focus of eruptive activity.
In the meantime, Michigan Tech’s geological engineering program will continue to produce
volcanologists to study these volatile and important features of Earth’s geophysical
system. The sheer number of people affiliated with Tech responding to the situation
is proof of that.
“The volcano community is small,” Schneider says. “There are not that many places
to study volcanoes in the world. There are only a couple thousand volcanologists in
the world; you know most everybody.”
Lava flows from an eruptive fissure in Kīlauea's Lower East Rift Zone toward the ocean
as seen from this helicopter overflight. Image credit: Greg Waite
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