Volume 6 number 1, January 2004 Red Hot Lava While still in school (1988) I had the opportunity to participate in one of the Geological Society of America’s Cordillerian Section meetings. Why on Earth would anyone want to do such an apparently boring thing? Because this particular event was being held in Hilo, Hawaii. Since the University of Hawaii was hosting the entire thing and everyone was welcome to stay in their dorms and eat in the cafeteria, room and board was dirt cheap. I even had a little pet cockroach while I stayed there. Every time I returned to my room I would ask it, “What, nobody spray you yet?” The meeting was well attended by professionals, as expected, but it also attracted the greatest number of students ever (Duh!). I’m sure our professors were extremely proud of us. Every student knew exactly when they were required to give their presentations and we presented them well. If the truth be known, all we really wanted to do was get our responsibilities out of the way so we could cut loose and start raging on Hawaii to our heart’s content. I remember sunny, fragrance-filled mornings in the cafeteria, munching on fresh pineapples and cold cereal, finding out what other people had planned. “What are you doing today?” I would ask. Body surfing, jungle exploring, sea kayaking, bicycling, and deeps-sea fishing would just be a small example of what was going on. Inevitably I would find a group of people who would have the same idea I had and we would all pitch in and go together. It was a lot of fun and I made tons of friends. The meeting went on for nearly two weeks, mostly consisting of one presentation after another on a wide variety of subjects. Practically anything was fair game as long as it had something to do with geology. The grand finale was a field trip to see the lava flow that was at that time gushing out of the side of Mauna Loa. The mere mention of lava had most of us salivating with anticipation. So many people had signed up that the organizers had to rent six or eight buses to carry us all. On the day of the trip everyone piled in, and off through the jungle to the lava flows we went. I’m not sure exactly what the leaders had in mind for us when we arrived at the last bit of road not yet buried by lava. Whatever it was, it wasn’t what we did. Instead, every single one of us geologists got out, ignored all the warnings put up by the National Park Service to keep us away and started hiking up the flow to find some red-hot lava. Isn’t that why we were there? Sure the signs clearly quoted federal law that explicitly forbade such an activity, but we were geologists. You couldn’t possibly deny us a once-in-a-lifetime chance to check out some red-hot lava. Our entire educations were filled with images of red-hot lava. It was red-hot lava that got us to be geologists in the first place. It haunts us, calls us, and dares us to play. There isn’t a single geologist that’s ever been able to resist it. Red-hot lava, it’s what it’s all about. So somewhere around 400 geologists left the relative safety and legality of the highway and started tramping up the lava flow to discover its source. It was frying-pan hot out there, and I soon discovered that it wasn’t just the tropical sun heating things up. About one to two feet below the surface of the flow, the basalt was still incandescently hot. We could see it through little cracks and crevices and feel it through the soles of our shoes. Occasionally, people up ahead of me would shout out to try another way since the crust was getting a little too thin for comfort in places. Nobody was exactly thrilled with the idea of plunging through to be instantly vaporized in molten rock. At least, not unless someone got your picture while you were doing it. Eventually we found a place where the lava was coming out of the ground. It was like Mecca to us. Everyone was taking pictures, giving impromptu lectures and taking ‘samples.’ We cheered when a grove of trees went up in flames and marveled at swallowed-up street signs and blackened, abandoned cars. We dipped our rock hammers into the still-molten lava, pulled out great sticky globs of the stuff and stamped our boot prints into them. We danced, chanted and basically oga-cha-ka-ed for hours and hours. Eventually people started wondering back down the flow towards the buses. I guess they had had enough, but not me. Nothing short of total dehydration and starvation was going to drag me away from that marvelous stuff. Eventually a core group of ‘lava-heads’ remained for nearly the entire night. I’ll never forget it: the stars above, tropical breezes, and red-hot lava everywhere around me for as far as I could see. I would dreamily shout to my fellows, “Hey, look at me. I’m out in the middle of the red-hot lava.” “So am I,” they would giddily reply. It wasn’t until long after every last drop of water and crumb of a long-a-go lunch had been consumed that it was decided that perhaps the world did have something else to offer and that we should go and find it. We left that wondrous place of creation and hiked carefully back down the flow towards reality and the rest of our lives. Nothing much was said along the way. We were just so content with what we had experienced. Everything was perfect that night, geologically speaking, and it stayed that way until we finally ran into a National Park Service ranger coming the other way. He was not at all happy with us. He was experiencing Park Service hell. In fact, he looked like he could just about explode with frustration. “Are you geologists?” he accused us. His tone of voice could have stripped lacquer off of an old Cadillac with ease. “Why yes, we are,” we answered innocently. How could he have known? we all wondered. “Do you have any idea of how completely illegal it is for you to be out here?" he demanded, melting the paint off another old car. We didn't say anything. We thought that perhaps right then was not the best time to claim we geologists have a divine right to ignore all federal laws when in the presence of red-hot lava. Somehow, our silent pause broke him down, and he explained to us that for the last fourteen hours, he had done nothing but arrest one damn geologist after another, hundreds of them. "Where in the hell are you all coming from?" he asked, exasperated. He continued, "I even had to commandeer all these buses I found along the highway just to haul them away in." He figured it might be a week before he could even get them all booked. Nothing like this had ever happened in the history of Hawaii. We pretty much figured we were had. A week in jail just to be booked, even in Hawaii, didn’t sound like a lot of fun. Then he did something we didn’t expect. The ranger took off his hat and began to rub his temples—no doubt to ease the raging headache he must have been experiencing. He asked quietly, “Are there any more of you up there?” “No,” we all said in unison. It was the truth. Probably the first shred of actual truth he had heard all that night. We ‘lava-heads’ had remained to the last. No one else was left. The ranger continued, “Well, then today is your lucky day because that’s the best thing I’ve heard all night, and besides, I already sent the last bus full of you bozos to jail. Now get out of here and never ever come back.” “We promise,” we said, and we meant it. I still haven’t broken that promise. I’ve always wondered what it was like to spend a week crammed like sardines in jail with almost every single geologist from North America. I’m sure after several days of their blithering nonsense that the entire lot was threatened by the authorities with a firing squad if anyone so much as mentioned the Pliocene one more time. Thank God a few of us escaped. What would the world do without us? Imagine a world completely devoid of geologists. What if we were lawyers instead? Somebody would have dropped the bomb for sure and laughed, laughed, laughed, laughed, laughed. | ||
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