Vegetation is returning to the lava-wracked landscape of the park. In the last four years, it has added over 300 acres of new land to the park. Chain of Craters Road ends abruptly where recent lava flows splashed over it and then cooled into a rocky plain. From there, the road travels upward some 4,000 feet toward the gaping former crater, Kilauea Caldera, which is 3 miles wide and still smoking. Along the way, black lava fields mark scenes of previous flows and eruptions.
Volcanoes are one way Earth gives birth to itself.
The planet's rigid outer layer, the lithosphere, takes the form of plates. The plates drift at a snail's pace over the more squishy mantle. Between the plates, molten rock from deep within the Earth can escape to the surface. The Pacific Plate stretches from the U.S. West Coast almost to China. Volcanoes near the edges include Mt. St. Helens in Washington State, Alaska's Katmai, Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines and Japan's Mt. Fuji.