Ka‘ū News Briefs, Saturday, December 28, 2019

BREAKTHROUGH 2020: YOUR MIRACLE IS HERE will be held at Nāʻālehu Assembly of God from Sunday, Jan. 12 through Saturday, Jan. 18 at 6 p.m. and Sunday, Jan. 19 at 9:45 a.m. Apostle Kola Emiola of Dominion Impact Church of Ibadan in Nigeriawill make a special presentation, "School of Miracles," on Saturday at 10 a.m.

     Free and open to the public, the week of "Your Life Will Never Be the Same" will feature Bishop Matthew and Laura Torres Sr. of Zion's House of Praise, Pastor Sam and Kim Souza of Solid Rock East Hawaiʻi, Pastor Stanley Mizuno and Pastor Dexsilyn Navarro or Thy Word Kaʻū, Pastor Troy and Heather Gacayan of River of Life Assembly of God, Apostle Emiola, and Pastor Kevin and Minda Brown of Nāʻālehu Assembly of God.

     The church also offers a free movie night on the first Friday of the month, at 6:30 p.m. January's showing is The Case for Christ.

     The church is located at 95-5678 Māmalahoa Hwy, at the 64 mile marker. Call 808-929-7278 with questions.

LEARN ABOUT KIDNEYS AND THEIR FUNCTION at Aloha Kidney in Kaʻū on Thursday afternoons, 1 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.form Jan. 16 through Feb 20, at Kaʻū Resource Center, 96-3126 Puahala St. in Pāhala. The free class series is lead by retired kidney doctor Ramona Wong, MD.

     The announcement about the class asks attendees to bring a pen and invite "those who love you to enroill, especially if they buy/cook your food." The class is open to "anyone who loves their kidneys, especially if they have Chronic Kidney Disease, excess protein in urine, or decreased glomerular filtration rate."

     The class sessions each focus on different aspects of CKD: Jan. 16, You and your kidneys: What kidneys do, what happens when they fail; Jan. 23, Aloha kidney: How to slow loss of kidney function, protect what's left; Jan. 30, Kidney, heart, brain connection: Why at risk and what to do about it; Feb 6, Food, labs, meds . . . help?! Understand what matters with CKD; Feb. 13, Options if kidneys fail: Dialysis, transplant, natural life options; Feb. 20, Choices: Others share their journey with dialysis, transplant, natural life.

     Enroll online at alohakidney.com or call (808) 585-8404.

Jo Schmith examining ash from Katla volcano  in Iceland. Photo courtesy Jo Schmith

UNDERSTANDING KĪLAUEA'S EXPLOSIVE ERUPTIONS is the focus of this week's Volcano Watch, written by U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory affiliate Johanne Schmith, Danish postdoctoral fellow:

     Kīlauea Volcano attracts researchers from all over the world. Dr. Johanne (Jo) Schmith joined the ranks of USGS HVO in June to study some deposits of past Kīlaueaexplosions – a timely endeavor given the presence of water in the caldera today.

     Jo is a physical volcanologist, field enthusiast, and true ash aficionado, but a career in volcanology was not an obvious choice for someone growing up in the rolling grasslands of Denmark. However, Jo has always enjoyed taking the path less traveled, and after watching scientists studying active volcanoes on TV, she knew she had to be one of them.

     Jo went to the University of Copenhagen to pursue a Master's degree in geoscience, with a double major in geology and geophysics during her undergrad years. Loving the outdoors, she participated in as much fieldwork as she could, and she joined a seismic survey team to work in Denmark, Ukraine, and Norway, progressing to manage field camps. These experiences gave her a solid background for carrying out fieldwork in environments spanning sunny cornfields to cold barren mountains north of the Arctic Circlewhile dealing with multiple cultures and languages, sleep deprivation, tight deadlines, equipment failure, and once a trip to a local police station to retrieve a seismometer that someone had mistaken for a bomb.

     Unfortunately, there were no opportunities to study volcanology in Copenhagen, so Jo fundraised to go to the University of Hawaiʻi at Hiloin 2006 for a semester of volcanology and volcano monitoring. Field trips to active lava flows taught her invaluable lessons about real-life volcanology, and Hawaiʻi won a very special place in her heart.

     Master's research took Jo to the Cape VerdeIslandsin Africa. She was the first to map and sample the volcanological features of the island of Boa Vista, and she gained new field experience dealing with hot deserts, cobblestone highways, and transporting the occasional hitchhiking goat and owner between villages. She used chemical analysis of the volcanic rocks to search for their origin deep within the Earth's mantle and made a melting model of the islands.

     On her way to a vacation in Icelandin 2010, Jo flew past the first puffs of the Eyjafjallajökull ash cloud that made headlines around the world for closing European air space. The close personal encounter got her interested in volcanic ash. She won a Nordvulk Fellowship and moved to Icelandwith her family to pursue a double PhD degree at the University of Iceland and University of Copenhagen in the physical volcanology of explosive eruptions.

The hot green pond in Halemaʻumaʻu is more orange-yellow as of Wednesday, Dec. 18, from sulfur, according to  HVO scientists. The pond was 189 m (650 ft) long and approximately 600 m (1970 ft) below the western caldera rim  as of Dec. 18. USGS photo

     Jo wanted to explain why two explosive eruptions from Katla volcano were unusually large. She conducted a field study, sampled the ash deposits from the eruptions, and started investigating the formation of the ash in the lab. Specifically, she developed a new systematic way to classify ash samples in terms of how much magma-water interaction had influenced the explosions that generated the ash. She showed that water interacted differently with the magma than previously thought and that the explosive potential of the Icelandic volcanoes is grossly underestimated.

     Now Jo has joined forces with scientists at HVO and UH Mānoa to study the explosive past of Kīlauea Volcano represented by the Keanakākoʻi Tephra. She has been awarded a two-year postdoctoral fellowship from the Danish Carlsberg Foundation and will use her expertise to evaluate the role of water in explosions at Kīlauea's summit.

     Jo is mapping and sampling the thickest eruptive deposits to reconstruct the dynamics of the eruptions that produced them. These are particularly important and timely studies given the growing water pond in Halemaʻumaʻu. Her results will contribute to a more detailed understanding of hazards at Kīlauea's summit.

     Jo has also been a passionate presenter of earth science to the public, and she has been engaged in developing a new school-visiting service at the National Natural History Museum of Denmark and later at the UNESCO world heritage site Stevns Klint. She has worked with inquiry-based learning and talent development at the NationalCenter for Learning in Science, Technology, and Health for the Ministry of Education and has a keen interest in promoting science literacy.

     Welcome, Jo, to the HVO ohana!

     Volcano Activity Update

     Kīlauea Volcano is not erupting and its USGS Volcano Alert level remains at NORMAL. For more info on the status of Kīlauea, see volcanoes.usgs.gov/volcanoes/kilauea/status.html. Kīlauea monitoring data continue to show steady rates of seismicity and ground deformation, low rates of sulfur dioxide emissions, and only minor geologic changes since the end of eruptive activity in September 2018. Rates of seismicity have been relatively consistent, although at the summit, episodic increased rates appear to be coincident with the inflated phase of the DI events. Sulfur dioxide emission rates are low at the summit and are below detection limits at Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō and the lower East Rift Zone. The pond at the bottom of Halema‘uma‘u, which began forming on July 25 continues to slowly expand and deepen.

     Mauna Loa Volcano is not erupting. Its USGS Volcano Alert level remains at ADVISORY. This alert level does not mean that an eruption is imminent or that progression to an eruption is certain. Mauna Loa updates are issued weekly. For more info on the status of Mauna Loa, see volcanoes.usgs.gov/volcanoes/mauna_loa/status.html.

     This past week, about 118 small-magnitude earthquakes (almost all smaller than M2.0) were detected beneath the upper elevations of Mauna Loa. Two of these events, both M3.2 earthquakes, were felt by several island residents. Most of the earthquakes occurred at shallow depths of less than 6 km (~4 miles) below sea level. Deformation measurements show continued summit inflation, consistent with magma supply to the volcano's shallow storage system. Gas concentrations and fumarole temperatures on the Southwest Rift Zone remain stable.

     HVO continues to closely monitor both Kīlauea and Mauna Loafor any signs of increased activity. Volcano Watch,  volcanoes.usgs.gov/observatories/hvo/hvo_volcano_watch.html, is a weekly article and activity update written by U.S. Geological Survey Hawaiian Volcano Observatory scientists and affiliates.