Papakolea, Two Summits, & Kipuka Pu’u Huluhulu

Day 4 we went to Papakolea! Papakolea is a green sand beach, and is one of the four green sand beaches in the entire world. It has the most green sand out of all of the four beaches. The word “papakolea” literally translates to green clover. This beach is a bay, cut in a cinder cone from Mauna Loa, which erupted 50,000 years ago. The high walls and the bay ring are from the cinder cone collapsing. The green in the sand is from the high amount of olivine, and in Hawaii, is known to be Hawaiian diamonds. The sand itself is made of olivine, coral, and lava rock. As the cinder cone erodes, more green sand is produced, meaning eventually, the green sand on this beach will disappear. It is actually illegal to remove sand from this beach. Additionally, those who do, are believed to inherit a curse. In Hawaii, some natives believe in Pele’s curse. Pele’s curse gives bad luck to anyone who removes things, such as sand and shells, from the Hawaiian island.

On the beach, we completed a variety of activities to attempt to determine where exactly the olivine was coming from the cinder cone. My group determined that the sand itself was ¼-½ mm and was subangular. Additionally, as seen in the photo below, some layers are thicker than others, and darker. My group determined that the darker layers had higher olivine concentrations, and it’s possible that the majority of the olivine comes from these layers.

Me walking down to the beach (note the layers of rock)

During our adventures here, we also watched some people cliff diving, which was pretty scary. These people would climb up onto the small cliffs of rock, and time their dives to meet with the peaks of waves coming into the beach. We saw one man who seemingly hurt his ankle by timing it poorly. It was quite worrisome! We then left the beach and had a phenomenal Thai dinner, and all went home to crash in bed early from the like 6 mile day in the sun and 4+ hour driving trip.

This morning, we took a drive into Hilo and went to the local farmers market for two hours! I got a few gifts for a few people at home and a beautiful handmade Hawaiian dress. We grabbed some lunch, headed over to a Japanese garden, ate, and talked about our adventures-to-come.

We then took an adventurous drive to the literal center of the main island, between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. Wow! Our first stop was Pu’u Huluhulu. The pu’u, or hill, is actually a kipuka, or a vegetated refuge surrounded by lava flows with a diverse landscape of Hawaiian plants and animals. This hill formed from a Mauna Kea eruption between 14,000 and 16,000 years ago. It became kipuka when Mauna Loa erupted 2,000 years ago, and surrounded it with its pahoehoe flows. This is a sacred space to native Hawaiians, in addition to Mauna Kea. Mauna Kea is believed to be sacred due to the native belief of it connecting the lands to the heavens. When we walked up the kipuka, we were educated about how many natives usually have sacred ceremonies there. Although we did not see any natives, we did see a tiki like wood carving with a sign to denote its religious importance to the native people.

After this, we took a look up, and saw the peaks of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. This was phenomenal. Professor told us how ¾ of the time she has been there, she was not even able to see her hand in front of her face, let alone the peaks of BOTH volcanoes. In early 2023/late 2022, there was also an eruption from Mauna Loa that cut off the road to the original observatories on Mauna Loa. We drove a few miles up that road, to 9,000ft altitude, and stumbled across the lava that cut off the road. We were able to touch and walk on a year and a half old lava! After taking some pictures, admiring the view, and watching the clouds roll in, we headed out. Tonight was a Star Wars night. I will see you all next time!

Me holding lava rock with the cut off road behind me

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