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Clean air provides crystal views of mauka mountains along Hwy 11 between Kāwā and Punaluʻu. As of March 26, U.S. Geological Survey Hawaiian Volcanoes Observatory lowered hazards and Aviation Code to GREEN. This means the volcano is at a non-eruptive, background state. ADVISORY level for ground-based hazards and Aviation Code YELLOW since October, 2018, three months after the eruption quietened. Photo by Julia Neal |
MOVING USGS HAWAIIAN VOLCANOES OBSERVATORY to Oʻahu "doesn't seem to make a lot of sense," said Sen. Mazie Hirono to U.S. Interior Secretary Nominee David Bernhardt during a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing in Washington , D.C.
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| Evidence of structural damage to HVO's building at the edge of Halemaʻumaʻu. USGS photo |
Hirono reports discussions on a new HVO facility on Oʻahu, which would relocate scientists who monitor four active Hawaiian volcanoes: Kīlauea , Mauna Loa , Hualālai, and Haleakalā.
U.S. Geological Survey monitored Hawaiʻi's volcanoes from the rim of Halemaʻumaʻu crater at Kīlauea for almost a century. Last year, daily earthquakes shook Kīlauea caldera. Its walls fell in, undermining the integrity of the HVO building. After monitoring from the summit since 1924, scientists moved.
Hirono told the interim Interior Secretary, "We obviously need to rebuild the facility." She urged him to keep it where "there are active volcanoes.
"I would want to have your commitment that you will listen to the Congressional delegation as well as local stakeholders to put this observatory where the eruptions will likely occur," Hirono told Bernhardt.
"I have to say, I will absolutely look into that," Bernhardt replied.
Concluded Hirono, "Let's do things that make actual common sense."
In the Volcano community, some residents suggested the damaged HVO building, which also held Hawaiʻi Volacnoes National Park's Jaggar Museum
The U.S. Department of the Interior oversees both USGS and the National Park Service, which manages Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park.
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| USGS photos |
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SECURING AMERICA'S ELECTIONS ACT was reintroduced on March 28 by Rep. Tulsi Gabbard. Gabbard said the bill would address the "extreme vulnerabilities" within our nation's elections infrastructure, "leaving voters susceptible to potential hacking and manipulation of votes." It would require the use of voter-verified paper ballots or a paper ballot backup in federal elections that if needed, can be audited and counted by hand, optical scanner, or similar device. The bill would establish voter-verified paper ballots as the correct record of the total votes cast, in the event of any inconsistencies or irregularities between electronic and paper vote tallies. The bill also includes language addressing open-source technology "to further strengthen our elections infrastructure."
Aaron Scherb, Director of Legislative Affairs with Common Cause, said the organization appreciates Gabbard's efforts to "secure our elections against malicious attacks." He said the act would "help prevent foreign entities from trying to undermine our democracy."
According to the Department of Homeland Security, 21 U.S. states' electoral systems faced attempted hacking in the 2016 election. Shortly after, at the world's longest-running and largest hacking conference, DEFCON 25 revealed startling cyber vulnerabilities in US election infrastructure. In 2017, during an Oversight Committee hearing, Gabbard highlighted Virginia's move to a voter-verified paper ballot system following the DEFCON revelations. She reports the Virginia Department of Elections stated they did not receive a single complaint questioning the integrity of the 2017 election and produced the highest voter turnout in two decades. DEFCON also released a new report detailing further vulnerabilities and the need for public funds to address them.
The Securing America's Elections Act would complement other legislative efforts supported by Gabbard "to protect and promote voter enfranchisement," including the voting rights provisions in H.R.1 the For the People Act of 2019, H.R.51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, and H.R.645, the Automatic Voter Registration Act.
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| Kaʻū Valley Mountain Hike on Wednesday, May 1 takes participants through Kaʻū's rainforest, along the old sugar plantation waterways. Photo by Lee Neal |
MISS KAʻŪ COFFEE COURT WILL REIGN over activities of the Kaʻū Coffee Festival through Sunday, May 5. The events are open to the public. They are:
Pā‘ina and Open House kicks off the fest on Friday, April 26 at Pāhala Plantation House, 5:30 p.m. Meet the Miss Kaʻū Coffee Court on the evening before the pageant. Enjoy live entertainment and refreshments. Call Pāhala Plantation Cottages, 928-9811.
Miss Kaʻū Coffee Pageant is Saturday, April 27, 6 p.m. at Kaʻū District Gym. To volunteer or donate, call Pageant Director Trini Marques at 928-0606. See contestants on yesterday's Kaʻū News Briefs.
Kaʻū Coffee Recipe Contest is Sunday, April 28, 11 a.m. at Kaʻū Coffee Mill. Categories are pūpū, entrée, and dessert. No entry fee, all ages. Free tastings. Contest entry info at KauCoffeeMill.com or KauCoffeeFest.com. Call 928-0550.
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| Pāhala Plantation House kicks off the festivities during the Paʻina with live entertainment and refreshments. Photo by Julia Neal |
Kaʻū Valley Farms Tour and Lunchhappens Thursday, May 2, 9 a.m. to noon . Above Nāʻālehu, visit a plant nursery, food farm, coffee and tea plantings, native forest, and hidden valley. $40 per person. Reservations required. Call 987-4229 or 731-5409.
Kaʻū Coffee and Cattle Day on Friday, May 3, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. is at Aikane Plantation Coffee Farm. Includes farm tours, BBQ buffet, and hayride. Visit this historic Ka‘ū Coffee farm and ranch. $25, reservations required. Call 927-2252.
Kaʻū Stargazing on Friday, May 3, 5:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. , takes guests to the top of sacred Makanau during a new-moon. Learn about the ancient Hawaiian temple and see the Hawaiian night sky and stars. Reservations required; $45 per person, includes refreshments. Call 938-0550.
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| Kaʻū Coffee Fest closes with Coffee College, where enthusiasts and farmers can learn more about coffee and new, innovative tools. Photo by Julia Neal |
Kaʻū Coffee College, held at Pāhala Community Center 9 a.m. to noon on Sunday, May 5, serves up education and demonstrations for coffee farmers and Kaʻū Coffee enthusiasts.
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KAʻŪ LITTLE LEAGUE MINORS AND MAJORS are seeking donations and sponsors to help the young baseball players of Kaʻū to participate in Kaʻū's Little League and play games all over Hawaiʻi Island. Monetary donations would go to offsetting registration fees, and uniform and equipment costs.
KAʻŪ LITTLE LEAGUE MINORS AND MAJORS are seeking donations and sponsors to help the young baseball players of Kaʻū to participate in Kaʻū's Little League and play games all over Hawaiʻi Island. Monetary donations would go to offsetting registration fees, and uniform and equipment costs. Contact Josh or Elizabeth Crook at 345-0511 or kaulittleleague@yahoo.com.
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FAULTING AT HALEMAʻUMAʻU crater gives opportunities for examination of 19th century lava flows. Find out why this is causing excitement for geologists in this week's Volcano Watch, written by U.S. Geological Survey Hawaiian Volcano Observatory scientists and affiliates:
New outcrops make good geology.
A good field geologist is an opportunist. Never content with what outcrops are available, she jumps at the chance to see another one, hoping that it will provide a better understanding to some question about what happened in the past. But it isn’t every day that new outcrops are created, and rarer still when they are on the scale of those formed during the faulting of Kīlauea Volcano's caldera floor in summer 2018.
As Halemaʻumaʻu sank and widened, its crater wall began to expose lava flows that formed during earlier eruptions and were covered by later flows. In particular, the north side of Halemaʻumaʻu bites some 500 m (1640 ft) deeper than before, potentially making accessible lava flows that erupted and gradually filled the caldera early in the 19th century.
In addition, the faults that bound the down-dropped sector of the caldera exhumed the south sulfur bank and expose lava flows not previously observed by scientists.
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Aerial view of the western part of (400 feet) below the caldera floor. Many 19th century lava flows are exposed in the fault scarps. Halema‘uma‘u (not visible) is to the left of this photo. USGS photo by D.Swanson |
Chemical and isotopic analysis of 19th-century caldera fill exposed in the high wall of Halemaʻumaʻu and adjacent faults will augment and refine their startling finding. It won’t be easy to do the sampling, though, because a lot of rocky rubble mantles much of the wall, possibly obscuring some flows. But it needs to be done before lava returns to Halemaʻumaʻu.
The faults cutting the caldera floor may reveal details about the 19th century caldera fill that have long eluded geologists. Maps and sketches of the floor made at various times show wide, multiple lava lakes and probably several editions of "black ledges" adjacent to the lakes.
How deep were those lakes? Were they merely shallow ponds and bays no more than a few tens of meters (yards) deep, or were one or more of them so deep that they connected with the magma reservoir perhaps 1 km (0.6 mi) or more deep?
The new exposures provide cross-sections through some of the 19th century caldera fill. These cross-sections can be examined to look for the margins and floors of ancient lava lakes, spills from those lakes, eruption conduits, and other features leading to a greater understanding of how the caldera was filled.
Thick explosive deposits formed between about 1500 and the early 1800s are exposed high on the south wall of Halemaʻumaʻu, covered only by one or two younger lava flows. Binocular observations of the lower north wall of Halemaʻumaʻu, several hundred meters (yards) below the caldera floor, have not seen any explosive deposits. Yet the explosive debris must have fallen into the caldera as well as around it.
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Telephoto zoom of the largest sulfur deposit forming on the northeast talus wall in Halema‘uma‘u. The view is from the USGS HVO K3cam. View live images.HVO photo |
The news isn't all good. Shaking during the more than 60 large earthquakes last summer caused rockfalls along the west side of the caldera that buried at least one outcrop of explosive deposits more than 1000 years old. Luckily, those deposits had already been sampled.
For a tantalizing time, a much larger outcrop of these old deposits reappeared in the caldera wall as the caldera floor dropped; this outcrop is shown in a photograph taken a few years before the 1919 lava flow covered it. But gradually throughout the summer 2018, this exhumed outcrop became stranded and inaccessible as the caldera floor sunk below it. Perhaps a way will eventually be found to study this superb outcrop.
Summer 2018 gave field-focused geologists lots to do and think about in Kīlauea Volcano's caldera. With new samples and first-hand observations, their work will build on what is already known or surmised and help us better understand the caldera and how its 19th-century activity differed so much from that of the past 100 years.
Volcano Activity Updates
Three earthquakes with three or more felt reports occurred in Hawaiʻi during the past week: a magnitude-2.5 quake 51 km (32 mi) southwest of Kahaluʻu-Keauhou at a depth of 28 km (17 mi) on March 26 at 10:04 p.m.; a magnitude-3.0 quake 31 km (19 mi) southeast of Waimea at a depth of 17 km (11 mi) on March 24 at 3:43 a.m.; and a magnitude-3.5 quake 5 km (3 mi) south of Volcano at depth of 13 km (8 mi) on March 23 at 11:13 p.m.
Visit volcanoes.usgs.gov/hvofor past Volcano Watch articles,Kīlauea and Mauna Loa updates, volcano photos, maps, recent earthquake info, and more. Call 808-967-8862 for weekly Kīlauea updates. Email questions to askHVO@usgs.gov.
Visit volcanoes.usgs.gov/hvofor past Volcano Watch articles,
To read comments, add your own, and like this story, see Facebook. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter. See our online calendars and our latest print edition at kaucalendar.com.
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See public Kaʻū events, meetings, entertainment. Print edition of The Kaʻū Calendar is free to 5,500 mailboxes throughout Kaʻū, from Miloliʻi through Volcano, and free on stands throughout the district. Read online at kaucalendar.com |
Kaʻū Trojans Spring Sports Schedule
Baseball:
Sat., March 30, 1 p.m. , @Konawaena
Tue., April 2, 3 p.m. , @HPA
Thu., April 4, 3 p.m. , @Waiakea
Sat., April 6, 11 a.m. , @Kealakehe
Sat., April 13, 3 p.m. , @Kamehameha
Fri., April 19, BIIF Semi-Finals
Softball:
Sat., March 30, 11 a.m. , @Konawaena
Wed., April 3, host Waiakea
Fri., April 5, 3 p.m. , @Kealakehe
Fri., April 12, BIIF Semi-Finals
Sat., April 13, BIIF Semi-Finals
Fri., April 19, BIIF Finals
Boys Volleyball:
Fri., March 29, 6 p.m. , @HPA
Wed., April 3, 6 p.m. , host Ehunui
Fri., April 5, 6 p.m. , @Christian Liberty , Varsity
Tue., April 9, 6 p.m. , host Waiakea
Fri., April 12, 6 p.m. , @Keaʻau
Wed., April 17, 6 p.m. , Kamehameha
Fri., April 19, 6 p.m. , host Honokaʻa
Track:
Sat., March 30, 3 p.m. , @Keaʻau
Sat., April 6, 9 a.m. , @Waiakea
Sat., April 13, 9 a.m. , @HPA
Free STD Testing, Monday, April 8, 2nd Monday monthly, 9 a.m. – noon, Ocean View Community Center. Sponsored by Hawai‘i Department of Health. Call for appt. on different day or time. Teenagers 14+ do not need parent/guardian consent. Confidential. Free condoms and lube. 895-4927
Kickball, Monday, April 8 through 29, 2:30 p.m – 3:30 p.m., Kahuku Park, H.O.V.E. Register keiki ages 6-12 April 1-5. Free. 929-9113, hawaiicounty.gov/pr-recreation
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UPCOMING
SATURDAY, MARCH 30
Count Humpback Whales – Final 2019 Sanctuary Ocean Count, Saturday, March 30, 8 a.m. to noon, Ka‘ū locations: Kaʻena Point in Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park, Miloli‘i Lookout, Ka Lae Park, and Punalu‘u Black Sand Beach Park. Participants tally humpback whale sightings and document animals' surface behavior during survey, providing valuable data to NOAA. Register at oceancount.org; registration closes one week prior to event. Free.
Exhibit - Ancient Hula: Through the Lens of Dino Morrow, daily, March 30-May 5, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Volcano Art Center Gallery. Reception on Saturday, March 30, 5p.m. Morrow is a documentary and portrait photographer specializing in imagery of local cultures. Free; park entrance fees apply. volcanoartcenter.org, 967-8222
Classic Car and Bike Show, Saturday, March 30, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Ocean View Community Center. Fun, food, music, and open house. Pre-registration of vehicles strongly recommended. Sponsored by Ocean View Community Association. Show prizes provided by Dune Buggy Concessions and OVCA. Raffle prizes provided by local merchants and individuals. Dennis, 831-234-7143, or Ron, 217-7982
Discovery Harbour Homeowners Mtg., Saturday, March 30 at 4 p.m., at the old Clubhouse. Bring chair.
MONDAY, APRIL 1
Scholarship Application Deadlines for American Association of University Women-Kona, Three $2,000 awards for college-bound high school students: Monday, April 1. Application packets at kona-hi.aauw.net. sharonnind@aol.com
Ka‘ū Homeschool Co–op Group, Monday, April 1, 15 and 29, 1 p.m., Ocean View Community Center. Parent-led homeschool activity and social group, building community in Ka‘ū. Confirm location in case of field trip. Laura Roberts, 406-249-3351
Ocean View Volunteer Fire Department Mtg., Monday, April 1, 4 p.m. – 6 p.m., Ocean View Community Center. 939-7033, ovcahi.org
Vacation Rental Regulation Hearing, Tuesday, April 2, 6 p.m., Hilo County Council Chambers. Testimony accepted.
AdvoCATS, Tuesday, April 2, 7 a.m. – 4:30 p.m., Ocean View Community Center. Free spay/neuter for cats. 895-9283, advocatshawaii.org
Finger Puppetry, Tuesday, April 2, 3:30 p.m. – 5 p.m., multi-purpose room, Ka‘ū District Gym. Open to keiki grades K-6. Free. Register through April 1. 928-3102, hawaiicounty.gov/pr-recreation
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3
Hula Voices with Kumu Kini Ka‘awa, Wednesday, April 3, 1st Wednesday monthly, 5:30 p.m – 7 p.m., Volcano Art Center Gallery. Desiree Moana Cruz moderates the talk story session. Free. 967-7565, volcanoartcenter.org
Open Mic Night, Wednesday, April 3, 6 p.m. – 10 p.m., Lava Lounge, Kīlauea Military Camp. Call 967-8365 after 4 p.m. to sign up and for more details. Park entrance fees may apply. Open to KMC patrons and sponsored guests, 21+. 967-8371, kilaueamilitarycamp.com
THURSDAY, APRIL 4
Women's Support Group, Thursday, April 4, 1st Thursday monthly, 3 p.m. – 4:30 p.m., PARENTS Inc., Nā‘ālehu. Women welcome to drop in. Free. Lindsey Miller, 333-3460, lindsey@hawaiiparents.org
FRIDAY, APRIL 5
Stewardship at the Summit, Friday, April 5 and 26, Saturday, April 13 and 20, 8:45 a.m. – noon, Kīlauea Visitor Center. Volunteers remove invasive plants. Gloves and tools provided. Free; park entrance fees apply. RSVP to Paul and Jane Field, field@hawaii.edu. nps.gov/havo
Skateboard Movie Night, Friday, April 5, 6 p.m. – 9 p.m., Ocean View Community Center. Free; open to public. 939-7033, ovcahi.org
ONGOING
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Five Scholarships are available from American Association of University Women-Kona: Three $2000 scholarships will go to female college-bound Kaʻū High School and West Hawaiʻi high school students. Applications must be postmarked by Monday, April 1. Two $1,000 scholarships will go to any female high school graduate or older women attending a two-year vocational program leading to a marketable skill at Palamanui Campus . Applications must be postmarked by Wednesday, April 10. Application packets available at kona-hi.aauw.net. Contact sharonnind@aol.com.
Beginning Farmer Institute Cohort Applications open through Monday, April 15. Free training program which "prepares new producers of any age or operation type for a successful future in agriculture." Applications at nfu.org/education/beginning-farmer-institute.
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Exhibit: On Sacred Ground by Dino Morrow is open daily, Saturday, March 30 through Sunday, May 5 at Volcano Art Center Gallery. The public is invited to see documentary and protrait photography of Hula Arts at the Kīlauea Program. Visit volcanoartcenter.org for more information.
Five Scholarships are available from American Association of University Women-Kona: Three $2000 scholarships will go to female college-bound Kaʻū High School and Beginning Farmer Institute Cohort Applications open through Monday, April 15. Free training program which "prepares new producers of any age or operation type for a successful future in agriculture." Applications at nfu.org/education/beginning-farmer-institute.
Kaʻū Coffee Fest invites non-profits, clubs, cooperatives, and businesses to sign up for booths at the 11th annual Kaʻū Coffee Fest Hoʻolauleʻa on Saturday, May 4 at Pāhala Community Center. The all-day event comes with music, hula, coffee tasting, and meeting the famous Kaʻū Coffee farmers. See
Booth fees are $100 for food vendors; $60 for non-food items and crafts, including coffee and coffee samples; and $35 for pre-approved information displays. No campaign and other political displays. Fifty percent discounts for non-profit organizations and cooperatives selling food, crafts, and coffee. Vendors must also obtain county vendor permits costing $30 each and a Department of Health permit, if serving food. Call Gail Nagata 933-0918. Apply by Friday, April 26. Application at KauCoffeeFestival.com. Email to biokepamoses@gmail.com; mail to Brenda Iokepa-Moses, P.O. Box 208 , Pāhala , HI 96777
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