Kīlauea Iki - lava and life

The hike across the floor of Kīlauea Iki offers impressive views of a once molten lava lake (check out this video for some amazing footage of the fire fountain during the 1959 eruption).

The floor of Kīlauea Iki - note polygonal cracks, and the well-tread trail

There are plenty of exciting geologic details - olivine phenocrysts, polygonal cracking (visible in the photo above, here's a paper on their formation), active steam vents - but there is also a surprising amount of life. Most striking are the blossoms of the ōhiʻa lehua, lonely frontrunners in the inexorable march of vegetative reclamation, splashing the landscape with red. The contrast is a reminder that eruptions not only destroy, but resurface and rejuvenate. The newborn rock hosts species endemic to Hawaii, adapted to live on freshly cooled flows.

 

 

 

ōhiʻa lehua (metrosideros polymorpha)