After your descent down Chain of Craters Road from the summit of the volcano Kilauea, you immediately notice the "steam" rising from the shoreline. After dark, this will glow orange as well. Need a chemistry refresher? This steam is, in fact, an acidic cloud called laze formed by the 2,100°F (1,140°C) lava vaporizing seawater. Chloride in the sea salt combines with hydrogen in the water to form hydrochloric acid in the plume cloud which also contains glassy fragments (lava contains the silicon and other elements needed for this.) If the wind blows inland, tourists can be assailed by hydrochloric acid as corrosive as battery dilute -- having a pH between 1.5 and 3.5. Don't get me started!
Guide books told us to arrive an hour before sunset so we could see the area before and after dark. Another plus is, of course, you get to see another Hawaiian sunset (but unfortunately not on a sandy beach with an adult beverage.
Here's a guy who obviously needs an adult beverage.
One of the many warning signs trying to keep tourists from the many hazards found in this area including methane explosions when lava sautés vegetation, hydrochloric acid clouds sweep in from the steam plumes, etc. It's also easy to trip and screw up a knee on the hard lava, especially when walking in the dark. (We did see a person with a walker here!)
Here's a steam vent with the ferns that love them. The park service marks a trail over the lava to the steam vents and the active lava flows by putting reflectors on the rocks.
The setting sun provides another view of the protean Pahoehoe lava. We are, in a sense, in silicon shoreline as lava is nearly half silicon.
Some folks bring offerings to the goddess Pele who likes a good lei.
More sunlight on lava...
Splatter cones rise up and then solidify as the land gets filled in and the lava shoreline moves out deeper into the sea.
Here's a piece of the old Chain of Craters road. About a third of it has been repaved over the years by the volcano.
Here's brave adventuress at the end of the world (literally).
As the sunlight fades, the molten lava begins to glow orange.
Much of the haze here is "vog" or volcanic fog created when sulfur dioxide mixes with oxygen, sunlight, and dust. You don't want to breathe this stuff. Volcano Kilauea emits about 2000 tons of sulfur dioxide daily, most of it from the active vents in this area.
Finally it was time for us to find our car among the long row of parked vehicles and make our way back up the Chain of Craters Road to the park entrance (and our civilized B&B in Volcano, HI).
