Two weeks ago, my friend Lily took a hike up Mauna Loa. Lily teaches science at a middle school on the big island of Hawaii, and we became friends this summer at MSSE Dino Camp. I would think that living on the island of Hawaii would have some major disadvantages over time (my guess is that I'd get cabin fever living on an island), but you can also imagine that it would have some major advantages too.

In addition to live volcanic activity, surfing, exotic birds, and just general paradise-like conditions, add this to the list: climbing a tropical volcano to see giant frost crystals forming on top! Here's an image she took at sunrise, looking west over the summit caldera:



Mauna Loa is the largest volcano on the planet Earth. Rising 5 kilometers from the Pacific seafloor to sea level, then an additional 4 kilometers to its summit, Mauna Loa has an estimated volume of 80,000 cubic kilometers! It's big.

Because it's so tall, the weather at the top is much colder than the tropical sultriness at the beachfront resorts. Lily and her hiking partner found this out when they camped out on top, and woke to find that overnight, giant crystals of frost had grown spike-like from the tops of the exposed cobbles and boulders of basalt. I don't have a sense of scale here, but I'm guessing these are a centimeter tall or so... Here's a close-up of the lower-left corner of the upper image:



Pretty cool, eh? Literally. Maybe Hawaii has more variety than I had assumed. I think this calls for a field trip to investigate!

Thanks to Lil for sharing the photo!

Labels: hawaii, ice, volcano