Complex sentence: The footprints were found accidentally by geologist Ruy H. Finch in the hardened ash of the Kaʻū Desert while he was trying to investigate a 1919 eruption that produced "Mauna Iki" (small mountain).
Split into simpler sentences: The footprints were found accidentally by geologist Ruy H. Finch in the hardened ash of the Kaʻū Desert. He was trying to investigate a 1919 eruption that produced "Mauna Iki" (small mountain).