Volcanoes! Pele Speaks! The Earth’s Core Shares Some of Her Secrets

Legend has it that Pele, Hawai’i’s Goddess of volcanoes and fire, and mistress of both destruction and rebirth, lives in the Halemaʻumaʻu Crater in the shadow of massive Mauna Loa, on Hawai’i’s Big Island. Her spirit and power are manifest in the Kilauea volcano, and—no disrespect intended—she was smokin’ hot when we visited, off-gassing to the southwest, shaking the ground for miles, and, shortly before and shortly after we walked the north rim of the crater, belching fire and liquified rocks some 500 feet above the vent hole. This was episode 21 of the current eruption, so it is little wonder Pele is not an occasional visitor to the minds of locals, but rather an omnipresent spirit that touches the daily lives of natives and visitors alike. A month later, she blew for over seven hours for her 24th episode of the current eruption, sending her magma over 1000 feet in the air. When Pele speaks, people listen!

The Big Island is the southeastern anchor of the Hawaiian-Emperor seamount range, a 3900-mile-long chain of underwater mountains populated by some eighty volcanoes stretching along the Pacific tectonic plate. The Hawaiian Islands are the tops of the few seamounts to poke their summits above the covering blanket of the Pacific Ocean, and the Big Island is essentially the layered remains of five volcanoes’ cooled lava or magma that the earth’s internal heat has forced through the “Hawaiian Hotspot,” a hole in the Pacific Plate. Underwater mountains form as that tectonic plate moves northwest across the stationary Hawaiian Hot Spot. If the mountains are big enough, their summits become islands, such as those that form the Hawaiian archipelago. Today, the eruptions we witness are through the vents in the Halemaʻumaʻu Crater at the summit of the Kilauea volcano on the eastern shore of the Big Island. Come back in a million years and you may find a new island formed by the Lō’ihi volcano (renamed Kama’ehuakanaloa Seamount currently) as you fly home from Kona to the States–if either Kona or the States are still extant in a million years. This is the creative process of the Universe, often remote in time or place for most of us, but here on direct display–raw, immediate, urgent—an existential part of each of us, whether we sense it or not.

Mankind has created many enduring, spiritually driven monuments—the Sphinx and the Pyramids along the Nile, Angkor Wat and the Temple of Heaven in Asia, Agra’s Taj Mahal, all notable examples—each designed and built over two or three decades. Creation of other notable constructs—Machu Picchu, Notre Dame, and the Sagrada Familia—each spanned a century or more. Chichen Itza was developed over 400 years ago. And Rome, the Vatican, and Athens have morphed through multiple incarnations over several millennia. Comprehending the creative processes involved in each of these, and the time required for each monumental creation, is to understand human processes and time tables. Pele’s clock is fundamentally different.  The layers of lava upon which we walked—Pele’s front porch—were laid down over hundreds of millions of years, each layer fundamentally a replica of the base layer. The most recent lava flows evident along Crater Rim Drive, now barely seven years old, are lightly adorned by a few scrubby trees, intermittent clumps of grasses, and occasional red, blue, or green patches of lichen. But they reveal time immemorial, a look back at God’s handiwork, whether created over seven days or seven hundred million years. Geological time: How tiny is our place?

At first glance, several miles across the Halemaʻumaʻu Crater, looking south from Volcano House, we saw a fairly large column of “steam,” mostly vaporized water. However, concealed by steam was also a blend of earth gases, some toxic, and perhaps strands of volcanic glass—Pele’s hair to locals—brittle, sharp, almost like fiberglass.  This was the discharge evident in the crater between episodes of “fountaining,” which, as would be expected, is the inner earth jettisoning magma–molten rocks and gases–hundreds of feet into the sky. Fire and brimstone, or more accurately basaltic, andesitic, and rhyolitic matter, is full of iron, magnesium, potassium, and other essential elements. The fountaining occurring currently spills lava into the crater—no threat to anyone—but the Pu’u O’o eruption of 2018, and before that, eruptions in 1983 and 1955, sent tons of lava overland and through the eastern rift zone, extending Hawai’i’s eastern shoreline as it reached the sea. Mauna Loa’s 2022 eruption sent lava through its southwestern rift zone and towards the southern tip of the island, one more layer of lava extending Hawai’i’s landmass. Over millions of years, islands have emerged. Over hundreds of millions of years, continents take shape, and our habitat is formed. Starting to appreciate the magnitude of what is revealed in a visit to this sacred site is indeed life-affirming and altering at the same time.

Unlike the haunting, alluring colors bordering the Yellowstone Hotspot, or even the more subtle shades of the Valles Caldera in New Mexico, the areas adjacent to the Halemaʻumaʻu Crater present a severe, barren beauty, worth interpretation, but more difficult to access. If what you first see is all you get, you can easily miss the delicate artistry of Pele’s domain. To help me assess the hidden messages buried in the muted black hardscape of Kilauea’s lava flows, I sought out Erik Storm, a Kama’āina “native,” a geologist and passionate advocate for Volcanoes National Park. I ask him to help me see the miles and miles of raw, black lava fields through a local’s eyes.

We went first to the Nāhuku lava tube, one of countless such formations characteristic of a volcanic topography. The tubes—more formally “pyroducts” – are formed by rivers of molten magma, superheated to 2200° F, which cut a channel as it flows away from the fountain, but cools and slows as it travels, eventually “skinning over” on the top to create a tube. When the lava eventually runs through this tube, it leaves a vacant passageway behind, essentially a long tunnel from the eruption vent to the sea or some other terminus. Some are big enough to walk through, as is Nāhuku. Not surprisingly, natives found many uses for the tubes—from food storage to shelter from storms, hiding places from enemies, and even burial sites. Stone tools, ceremonial artifacts, and even human remains tell stories of a thousand years of human evolution. The Kazumura lava tube system, including Nāhuku, is some forty miles long, the longest in the world.

Farther along Chain of Craters Road, Erik and I looked at pit craters, essentially extinct volcanoes once venting the Kilauea eastern rift zone; the characteristics of pahoehoe (smooth, but ropy lava rock) and A’a (sharp, rough, aerated rock) both types of lava evident in the flows east of the crater; and finally the slow but deliberate reclamation of lava fields by organic invasion. As you will recall, Pele is the mistress of both destruction and rebirth in Hawaiian cosmology. The destruction is pretty easy to comprehend: Molten lava burns up pretty much everything in its path and covers what is not consumed. The rebirth is a much slower process, but a primer on nature’s ability to repopulate and invigorate a sterile landmass, creating fertile environments for flora and fauna alike. Whether seen as validation of pagan mythology or fulfillment of the promises of other belief systems, it is nevertheless God’s work.

Nature’s transformation of lava flows into workable soil capable of supporting human living styles takes less time than one might think—it might be decades, it might be centuries, it might be longer, but it does not take hundreds of thousands of years. On one lava flow occurring during the author’s lifetime, the transformation process is already well begun. The ‘Ōhi’a, for example, is a pioneer tree that grows in the cracks of the lava bed. It is highly revered, and Erik showed me how quickly the transformative processes integrate themselves into life-supporting processes. Ōhi’a trees were the source of spears, canoes, and even houses for natives; their flowers became the physical manifestation of the powerful spirits in Hawaiian lies, chants, and hulas. Other flowers that start the process of lava land reclamation include the silversword, poppy, alpine aster, and lava cress, all grown in the rough terrain east of Kilauea. Importantly, nature’s reclamation process is not limited to vegetation. Soon enough, limpets, flamingoes, iguanas, nene, and other fauna will become regular participants in the transformation of burned-out lava flows into prospering tropical ecosystems. All in good time (if the volcano doesn’t blow, again). Amazingly, here, geologic time approaches reconciliation with human time. God’s work is on display.

The Chain of Craters Road is a long drive; it is hard to imagine that the lava could flow this far, but the proof is in the Hōlei Sea Arch, a lava structure believed to have been formed about the time Leonardo da Vinci painted the Mona Lisa. As we pondered its message, the relentless waves of the Pacific continued to sculpt its contours, waiting for its surrender and collapse. Not as fragile as many similar sea arches, it stands tall, a quiet testament to differential erosion. It is here that Pele’s fire meets the domain of her older sister, Nāmaka, Hawai’i’s Goddess of the sea. It is here that we appreciate our world’s primordial store, our divine origin narrative.

A round trip on the Chain of Craters Road takes the better part of a day, but it reveals the remarkable imagery of our creation story—etiological myth meets scientific phenomena. The scenic elements dance in the violent movements of a tight tango, only to be tamed over time by tropical winds and rhythmic waves, and be revealed finally in the soothing, beguiling gestures of a hula dancer. Meeting Pele and seeing her handiwork is an experience like none other. Making her acquaintance is well worth the time and effort.

If You Go

There are many guided tours at Volcanoes National Park, some originating in Kona, some in Hilo, and several inside the park (after entrance fees are paid) at Volcano House. Some are driving tours with groups of various sizes, and some are more intimate, more customizable, and more informative, with varying degrees of expertise and local knowledge. We contacted two tour operators, Kilauea EcoGuide, which offered individualized tours that slowwalked the crater rims and lava flows (https://www.kilaueaecoguides.com/), and Hawaii Forest and Trail, a driving tour that offered options beyond the park itself (https://hawaii-forest.com/). To get a more detailed explanation of park phenomena, we chose as our guide Erik Storm, a Kama’āina “native,” a geologist, and a passionate advocate for Volcanoes National Park, who also happened to be the Lead Guide at Kilauea EcoGuides. He told us Pele’s story and interpreted the remarkable sights unfolding before our eyes. I am sure others are good too, but Erik’s stories and answers to our questions held us spellbound while helping us understand why this sacred spot is an integral part of Hawai’i’s creation story, and critical knowledge for all of us as we seek to understand the world in which we live. Erik can (sometimes) be reached at (800) 640-5995.