Part 2: The Limestone Caves of Hawai'i - The Catastrophes at Makauwahi Cave

 

Makauwahi Cave and Sinkhole as it is today

I learned to my great surprise that Hawai'i has a few (very few, really) limestone caves. In part one I talked about the odd origin of Makauwahi Cave on the island of Kauai. In that post we learned that the limestone formed from limestone sand dunes that formed near Poipo Beach. The sand was lithified (glued together), and fresh water dissolved the limestone, forming the cavern, which has around 500 feet of passageways. At the end of the post I alluded to the fact that the cave was witness to three catastrophes that I'll look at today. On reflection, though, I think it's fair to say there were actually four catastrophes, one local, and the others island-wide.

Makauwahi Cave as it might have appeared 1000 B.C. Painting by Dr. Julian Hume

How did these catastrophes transpire? The rock formed around 400,000 years ago, and the passageways grew larger over time. By 7,000 years ago, wave action broke through and for perhaps a few centuries the cave was both a limestone cavern and a sea cave. Marine fossils formed a layer on the cave floor. But the waves may have contributed to the first catastrophe, because a short time later the roof of the cavern collapsed and formed a sinkhole. This is the bowl-shaped pit that is visible in the photo and painting above. The debris plugged the access to the sea, and the cavern and sinkhole filled with fresh water.

But is the collapse of a sinkhole a catastrophe? I guess it depends on your perspective. Some of the rarest of species on an island system with thousands of rare species would be those lifeforms adapted to living in total darkness. There are three blind species living in the darkness of Makauwahi Cave today, an amphipod, an isopod, and a blind spider (below) that feeds on the other two. These creatures have one of the most restricted environments possible on the islands, and the collapse severely restricted their living space. 

Blind cave wolf spider (descended from a surface-dwelling big-eyed spider, so it's sometimes called the no-eyed big-eyed Spider). Photo by Michelle Clark, USFWS.

The real "catastrophe" is what followed the formation of the pond in the bottom of the sinkhole. Animals found their way into the pit, but no way out. The pit became a death trap. Over the next few thousand years huge numbers of fossils, both animals and plants, accumulated in the sinkhole. The organic rich mud (peat) grew to be one of the thickest layers within the pit (see below). Excavations since the 1990s have revealed thousands of specimens that have revealed more about the pre-human environment on Kauai than any other site on the island.

10,000 years of sediment, 33 feet thick, excavated at Makauwahi Cave Source: https://www.hawaii.edu/malamalama/2002/01/LostWorld.html

The primeval world of Kauai and the other Hawaiian Islands was unique. The islands are so isolated that no reptiles, amphibians, or mammals ever reached the islands (aside from seals and bats). The only vertebrate creatures that found their way to the islands were the birds. As a consequence, the environmental niches in the island ecosystem were filled by avian species, and over time they adapted and evolved to fully utilize the resources available to them. Species of hawk and owl filled the role of predator, especially of smaller birds. Ducks and geese grew to immense size and lost the ability to fly, given the lack of larger predators (see below). They took over the niche of plant-eaters and grazers. The honeycreepers were the most astounding example of evolutionary adaptation. From a single Asian finch-like ancestor, more than 50 distinct species evolved, filling the niches occupied elsewhere by parrots, hummingbirds, woodpeckers, and insectivores. Sadly, most of them are extinct and most of the survivors are critically endangered.

Every Hawaiian duck or goose here is now extinct, except for the Nene, on the right. The Nene almost went extinct in modern times. Source: http://www.cavereserve.org/resources/documents/slideshow.pdf

How unique is the Makauwahi fossil record? Of 107 bird species known to have been endemic to the Hawaiian Islands, nearly half (50 species) have been found in and near the sinkhole. Several species were found here and nowhere else on the islands. Some of the unique birds include a flightless goose, a turtle-jawed moa-nalo bird, a long-legged owl that probably fed on other birds, and a little duck with tiny eyes, a flat skull and tiny wings that probably fed on forest insects at night. Several of the birds like the hawk and Laysan duck no longer survive on Kauai, but are still found on other islands. 

Another catastrophe happened about 300-400 years ago. Excavators digging in the sinkhole found their way barred by a layer of boulders weighing as much as 200 pounds. These rocks were a mixture of basalt, lithified dune sands, and coral. The only process that could pile such debris in a sinkhole like this would be a huge tsunami. There must have been a village nearby because the deposit also contains some human artifacts like pieces of canoes, ropes, and ornamental objects. These rocks and other objects were carried over a ridge 27 feet above sea level, meaning the wave must have been much taller.

Humans in Hawai'i have always had to deal with the threat of tsunamis. The location of the islands near the center of the Pacific Ocean means that they can be hit by waves from all directions, generated by earthquakes in places as far-flung as Japan, Alaska, Washington, and Peru-Chile. Strangely, the largest tsunamis of all have been generated by the Hawaiian Islands themselves. Gigantic mega-slides from the flanks of the islands flowing onto the adjacent deep ocean floor have generated waves in excess of a thousand feet high! Thankfully, no such waves have occurred in historic time.

The biggest change at Makauwahi Cave was that the pond had been filled in and it was no longer a fossil trap. But the third and fourth catastrophes become visible in the sediment record of the cave: the arrival of human beings on the islands. 

The landscape surrounding the sinkhole (above) is far, far different than the one that existed prior to a thousand years ago when the first Polynesians reached Kauai, the third catastrophe. Hardly any native vegetation remains. Humans have been successful at geo-engineering their environments to provide the food and resources they need to survive and flourish. The colonizers brought taro plants, coconuts, kukui nuts, and gourds, as well as dogs, pigs, chickens, and whether on purpose or not, the Pacific rat. These invasive plants and animals overwhelmed the native flora and fauna, driving many species to extinction, or to much more limited ranges.

Source: http://www.cavereserve.org/resources/documents/slideshow.pdf

The effect on the birds was truly catastrophic. Evolving in isolation, they had no defense against the mammal invaders. The flightless birds quickly disappeared, and many other species suffered huge declines (above).

Still, from a human point of view, a certain equilibrium had been achieved, even if the native species went into a steep decline. Humans had been expanding across the Pacific islands for centuries, and knew what resources they would need to bring with them when they found new islands to colonize. They also had a social structure that was rather efficient and strict (however unjust to our present sensibilities) that allowed the native Hawaiians to thrive in their new environment, largely operating within the carrying capacity of the lands they were occupying.

The fourth catastrophe began unfolding in 1778 when Captain James Cook and his crew arrived. The full extent of this event is also revealed in the sediments of Makauwahi Cave, but we'll take that up in part 3.

The authoritative source of information on Makauwahi Cave is the book Back to the Future in the Caves of Kaua`i: A Scientist’s Adventures in the Dark; David A. Burney, Yale University Press, 2010.

Visiting Hawai'i...for the Limestone Caverns? (Part one)

People visit Hawai'i for a great many reasons. There are the stereotypical reasons: beautiful beaches, surfing, palm trees, luaus and so on. There are other reasons: a wish to learn about the culture of the many people groups who call the island home, some of them for upwards of a thousand years. There are others who find fascination with volcanoes and lava flows. And the biology! The isolation of the islands has resulted in the evolution of hundreds, even thousands of species that exist nowhere else in the world.

I'm willing to bet that very few people come to the islands to tour the limestone caverns...

Limestone? Caverns? On the Hawaiian Islands?

Outcrop of limestone (!?) on the Mahaulepu Coast of Kauai.

There are actually a great many caves on the islands, but they are not the kind of caves that most people find familiar. They are called lava tubes, and they form when a lava river forms a ceiling of congealed basalt. When the lava flow ends, it drains out the tube leaving behind a long cylindrical cave. Hawaii has one of the longest such caves in the world, Kazimura, with a total length of 40 miles. The much shorter Nahuku Cave (formerly Thurston Cave) in Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park is well-known to park visitors.

Nahuku Lava Tube in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

But limestone caverns are not a familiar sight on the islands. Before my last trip I didn't know that there were any such caves in Hawai'i. For one, a limestone cavern requires limestone and the islands are composed largely of volcanic basalt. There are coral reefs around the islands in many places and they are composed of calcium carbonate (calcite), the mineral that makes up limestone. But coral forms at sea level, and caverns form from the dissolving action of fresh water, usually above sea level. And the islands are sinking, not rising, so on the face of it there seems to be no opportunity for the development of large bodies of limestone, much less caverns in Hawaii. 

Photo courtesy of Allie Brown

And yet it happened here, on the island of Kauai (and also, upon researching the subject, in downtown Honolulu; check out Moiliili underground caverns if you dare). It was a unique situation, a cavern formed in a sand dune environment. The cavern has been known as Warrior's Cave, Grove Farm Cave, Limestone Quarry Cave and others, but some extensive research revealed the ancient name (from an 1885 student essay) to be Makauwahi, or "source of the smoke".

Sand dunes hardly seem like a place for cavern formation because most of the time sand is composed of quartz and other silicate minerals. Hawai'i's sands are not. They are composed sometimes of basalt fragments (the black sand beaches), but the white or yellow sandy beaches of the islands are mostly composed of bits and pieces of coral reefs, in other words, calcite, the ingredient making up limestone. On the south side of Kauai near the extensive resort complexes of Poipo Beach there are some extensive coral sand beaches. Over the millennia the constant trade winds have blown sand off the beach inland, forming sand dunes above the shoreline. This happened in stages starting about 435,000 years ago during an interglacial period when sea level was higher than today.

Cliff of eolian limestone showing the tilted layers of cross-bedded dune sands at Makauwahi.

When the dunes were stabilized by vegetation, thick layers of soil developed on the surface. Beneath the surface the sand was lithified (glued together) by dissolved calcite and silica derived from the overlying soil. Then the climate changed and dunes moved in again. Over time thick layers of solid limestone resulted from the petrified dunes.

Makauwahi Cave, courtesy of Tylor Ghaffari

The soil layers provide the last part of the process, carbonic acid. Mixed with groundwater, the acid ate away at the lower layers eventually producing the caverns themselves. Later on, dripping and flowing water produced a variety of cavern formations (speleothems) like stalactites, stalagmites, and flowstone. Makauwahi Cave has around 500 feet of passageways, accessed through a small passageway. And so we paid a visit during our field studies exploration of Kauai.

The thing is, if Makauwahi were simply a cave it would merit some attention, but that is not what makes it extraordinary. Makauwahi was the site of three catastrophes, one of which was local, and two others that were island-wide. And from these catastrophes, an amazing story unfolds about life on Kauai, past, present and future. That will be the subject of part two, coming soon (I hope)!

Discover the Wonders of the Hawaiian Islands with Geotripper and Modesto Junior College -May 30-June 11, 2024!

Are you looking for a bit of adventure? 

I invite you to join our Modesto Junior College Anthropology 190/Geology 190: Field Studies in the Hawaiian Islands from May 30 to June 11, 2024. This once-in-a-lifetime journey spans nine days on the Big Island of Hawai'i and four days on Kaua'i. 

There is still time to join us for 13 days exploring volcanoes, coral reefs, tropical rainforests, tropical deserts, ancient foot trails, petroglyphs, and archaeological sites! Our itinerary includes Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, Mauna Kea, Hilo, the archaeological parks of the Kona Coast, and on Kauai we'll visit Waimea Canyon (the "Grand Canyon of the Pacific") and the Na Pali Cliffs, and much, much more.

The total cost for lodging, transportation, and inter-island flight is $2,850. Students are required to make their way to Hawaii and arrange their own meals. 

Contact instructor Garry Hayes (that's me) (hayesg@yosemite.edu) for more information.

This is a Zero-Textbook-Cost Class. We are writing our own!

Links for the Informational Brochure, Registration form, and the Tentative Itinerary can be found at the bottom of my MJC Faculty Page at MJC People Finder: Garry Hayes. Although some deadlines mentioned in the brochures have passed, we still have room for several more travelers, and would love to have you join us!

A Look Back at Ten Years of Geotripping: The Hawai'i That Was

This is one of my favorite bits of writing from Geotripper. I didn't actually write it until 2016-17, but I actually sketched it out way back in 2009 while sitting in a Mexican Restaurant in Bakersfield on a 112 degree day. On that day we were in no hurry to leave, so I was reading about the presence of the Gardner Pinnacles, a seven acre island that is the oldest bit of exposed volcanic rock in the Hawaiian Island chain. As I worked my way through a delicious three-entrée plate of tacos and enchiladas, I was imagining how many species of animals and plants might have existed there, including many that would have disappeared along with most of the island itself. My musings ended up as several handwritten pages of text that would eventually become the first post of the series. I lost the pages somewhere within a few days, but I never forgot the desire to write a series of posts on this incredible place. An extended visit and field class in the summer of 2016 finally gave me the inspiration to get the whole project off the ground. Instead of describing the beaches and tourist hotels, I was seeking to understand the ancient Hawai'i, the one that existed before European contact, and the one that existed before Polynesian contact.

This has been a continuing series of my personal celebration of ten years of blogging. The compilation below appeared on May 5, 2017.

Since last summer I've been working on a blog series based on the geology, natural history, and anthropology of the Hawaiian Islands, loosely based on our field studies class last summer. There are a lot of stories told by these isolated islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I finally reached the (possible) end of the series yesterday, and so today I'm putting together a compilation of the posts (click on the titles to get to each blog).

The Hawai'i That Was: A New Blog Series
This was the opening post that described what I hoped to do with the series. It included a picture of the Gardiner Pinnacles, the last bit of volcanic rock in the Hawaiian chain of islands. This bit of rock is the final remnant of an island that may have rivaled Kaua'i or Maui in size.

The Hawai'i That Was: To know what was we need to know Hawai'i today
I remember that the location and relative size of the islands meant little to me until I actually visited. In this post I laid out the geography of the main islands of the chain.

The Hawai'i That Was: Why Should We Care?
We are often far too ignorant of our dependence on the land and resources, and forget that they can be abused and wasted. All human societies alter the landscapes that they occupy to increase their chances for survival, and some are more successful than others. Hawai'i is a microcosm of the human experience on Earth.

The Hawai'i That Was: The Beginning of All Things, (Ba)salt of the Earth
Hawai'i begins and ends with basalt, the product of the partial melting in the mantle of the Earth. Basalt is the foundation on which the entire story of Hawai'i is written.

The Hawai'i That Was: The Abode of the Gods and Creation at Kilauea
Kilauea is the site of Hawaii's ongoing eruptive active, 33 years and counting. We saw some spectacular spattering when we visited at night. The video is in this post.

The lava lake in Kilauea Iki in 1959. We walked across it last summer

The Hawai'i That Was: Walking a Lake of Fire in "the Little Source of Great Spewing"
In 1959, a huge eruption produced gigantic columns of spewing lava and filled a depression creating a lake of fire. It's still hot today nearly 60 years later. We walked across the abyss.

The Hawai'i That Was: Pu'u O'o, the Volcano We Couldn't See
The present day lava flows at Kilauea originate at a vent called Pu'u O'o a few miles east of the summit. We didn't get to see it on this trip, but I flew right over it in 2009. Here are the pictures!

The Hawai'i That Was: Living on Uncertain Ground - The First Human Wave Arrives
Hawai'i was one of the last uninhabited places on planet Earth. We get a first look at what life was like for the earliest colonizers, and begin to understand how they changed the islands.

The Hawai'i That Was: How Can the Biggest Mountain in the World Stay So Hidden?
It was a bit strange that we were on Mauna Loa, the world's biggest mountain, and barely ever saw it. The weather on the Big Island can be fickle! No worries though, I found a lot of images in the archives.

The Hawai'i That Was: Mauna O Wakea, the Opening to the Heavens, and the Realm of Ice
There is a second gigantic volcano on the Big Island that is taller than Mauna Loa, but of somewhat less bulk. Mauna Kea is considered the realm of the gods, and in a sense modern technology reflects this as some of the world's most powerful observatories on the summit search the Universe for understanding.

The Hawai'i That Was: A Tale of Two Kipukas, and Thoughts on the Rarest Plants in the World
Ever wondered about the world's rarest plant? How about one that existed as a single specimen? That died? Someone preserved just a few seeds, so it may come back (there are about 200 planted in the kipuka today). The role of kipukas in preserving the Hawai'i that was is described in this post.

The Hawai'i That Had Never Been: A Mountain That is Younger Than Me, Mauna Ulu
An exploration of a mountain that didn't exist when I was in grade school, along with another of Hawai'i's fascinating kipukas. Mauna Ulu is a fascinating place to explore.

The Hawai'i That Was: There was a Monster in the Water at Laupahoehoe
The tragedy of the 1946 tsunami at Laupahoehoe, and how it saved hundreds of thousands in the Pacific Ocean later on, but didn't in the Indian Ocean in 2004.

The Hawai'i That Was: Where are the Rivers? Waterfalls on the Big Island
Many parts of the Big Island have no rivers despite near constant rainfall. In other places, there are some really nice waterfalls! We explore some of them in this post.

The Hawai'i That Was: A Veritable Rainbow of Sand (and cute gratuitous sea turtles)
Did you know that there are beaches in Hawai'i that are made of gemstones? Or that beaches range in color from black to white with a whole rainbow in-between? Lets explore a few.

The Hawai'i That Was: Look at the Cute Squirrel! (NOT a squirrel)
You will no doubt see a squirrel-like creature on some the Hawaiian Islands. It's not, it's a mongoose, which is an important control on pests in other lands. In Hawai'i it IS the pest. It's had a devastating affect on the native birds of the islands.

The Hawai'i That Was: Exploring Pololu Valley on an Unstable "Dead" Volcano
The Big Island is not noted for having huge coastal cliffs, but there are some nice ones on the northeast coastline. The origin of the cliff is a notable story as well, that of a gigantic prehistoric landslide.

The Hawai'i That Was: What Happened to the Stones of Pololu? A Look at Pu'ukohala Heiau
This is the story of the Pu'ukohala Heiau, one of the most intriguing archaeological sites in the Hawaiian Islands. It was built by King Kamehameha I prior to his uniting of the islands under single rule. The stones they used to build it came from the other side of the island.

The Hawai'i That Was: Lapakahi, the Kind of Place Where the Rest of Them Lived 
History seems to always be about the kings and presidents. We usually hear little about what life was like for the "commoners". Lapakahi is an archaeological site that protects a commoner's village on the northeast coast of the Big Island.

The Hawai'i That Was: Have We Got Some Real Estate for You! Exploring Kaloko-Honokohau National Historical Park
Hawai'i has a number of national parks, and one of them seems a strange choice, backed up against a Costo store near Kona. It's a barren lava flow, but treasures are hidden within its boundaries.

The Hawai'i That Was: Pu'uhonua o Honaunau, the Place of Sanctuary That Might Not Be So Safe (Geologically)
Can you ever feel safe? There are different kinds of 'safe' in Hawai'i. A few hundred years ago, small infractions could get you killed, but you could find safety and forgiveness if you could make it to a place like Pu'uhonua o Honaunau. Geologically though? Maybe not so much.

The Hawai'i That Was: Watching the Destruction of the Islands in Real Time
Flying from the Big Island to Kaua'i is like riding a time machine both backwards and forwards. We see the progression of the erosion and subsidence of the islands over the last 5 million years, but we are also seeing the future of the Big Island, five million years into the future.

The Hawai'i That Was: We Arrive on Kaua'i and Find the Beauty of Age
The Big Island and Kaua'i are separated by only a few hundred miles, but they might as well be worlds apart. They are different from each other in many ways. We begin an exploration of the oldest of the main Hawaiian Islands.

The Hawai'i That Was: History and Beauty at Ke'e Beach and the Na Pali Coast.
On the north side of Hawai'i is a spectacular coast of some of the highest beach cliffs in the world, and the remains of a hula school that operated for perhaps 800 years. Not many universities in the world can make such a claim.

The Hawai'i That Was: An Idyllic Paradise on the North Shore of Kaua'i. Sort of.
Hanalei Bay is one of the most beautiful places on planet Earth. But even paradise can be a place of danger. Why are all the houses built on stilts?

The Hawai'i That Was: Hanalei, Where the Waterfalls Seem to Stream From the Clouds
The north side of Kaua'i captures the warm moist tropical trade winds, and collects prodigious amounts of rainfall. The mountains here are the wettest places on Earth, with one spot that gets nearly 500 inches of rain per year.

The Hawai'i That Was: Rising Out of Depression on Kaua'i, and Sleeping Giants
Have you ever wondered where that unique mountain in the opening of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" was located? Actually dozens of movies have been filmed on Kaua'i somewhere. We also climb the Sleeping Giant, a slumbering hero of the native Hawaiians.

The Hawai'i That Was: Into the Last Stand of Wilderness in Kaua'i, the Alaka'i Swamp
We take a hike into the last refuge of many of the native species of the Hawaiian Islands, a high-altitude "swamp" on the Alaka'i Plateau. It is an absolutely unique environment, unlike any on Earth.

The Hawai'i That Was: What the Worst Disaster You Can Think of? The Terror of Na Pali...
The cliffs of the Na Pali is one of the most incredible shorelines in the world, and are stunningly beautiful. On the other hand, they are evidence of one of the most violent of disasters, one that was so intense that it sent waves crashing against the other islands more than a thousand feet high.

The Hawai'i That Was: The Lost Wetlands of the Mana Plain on Kaua'i
A portion of the west coast of Kaua'i exemplifies the conflict between the modern world and the natural environment that existed before. Volunteers are attempting to rebuild some of the wetlands that once existed on the Mana Plain.

The Hawai'i That Was: Waimea Canyon, the View You "Have" to Earn...
Our trip was near an end, and we took one last hike, one that end at the brink of a place so spectacular that it's been called the "Grand Canyon of the Pacific". We learned about the need to "earn" a view.

The Hawai'i That Was: The Final Refuge
For the our final blog in the series (for now at least), we have a look at Waimea Canyon, a deep gorge produced when half the island threatened to collapse and sink into the sea. We end with the realization that the natural environment that once existed in Hawai'i still survives in isolated corners here and there. These are the last refuge for many species, and many of us.

The Hawai'i That Was: A Geological and Anthropological Exploration of the Islands

Since last summer I've been working on a blog series based on the geology, natural history, and anthropology of the Hawaiian Islands, loosely based on our field studies class last summer. There are a lot of stories told by these isolated islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I finally reached the (possible) end of the series yesterday, and so today I'm putting together a compilation of the posts (click on the titles to get to each blog).

The Hawai'i That Was: A New Blog Series
This was the opening post that described what I hoped to do with the series. It included a picture of the Gardiner Pinnacles, the last bit of volcanic rock in the Hawaiian chain of islands. This bit of rock is the final remnant of an island that may have rivaled Kaua'i or Maui in size.

The Hawai'i That Was: To know what was we need to know Hawai'i today
I remember that the location and relative size of the islands meant little to me until I actually visited. In this post I laid out the geography of the main islands of the chain.

The Hawai'i That Was: Why Should We Care?
We are often far too ignorant of our dependence on the land and resources, and forget that they can be abused and wasted. All human societies alter the landscapes that they occupy to increase their chances for survival, and some are more successful than others. Hawai'i is a microcosm of the human experience on Earth.

The Hawai'i That Was: The Beginning of All Things, (Ba)salt of the Earth
Hawai'i begins and ends with basalt, the product of the partial melting in the mantle of the Earth. Basalt is the foundation on which the entire story of Hawai'i is written.

The Hawai'i That Was: The Abode of the Gods and Creation at Kilauea
Kilauea is the site of Hawaii's ongoing eruptive active, 33 years and counting. We saw some spectacular spattering when we visited at night. The video is in this post.

The lava lake in Kilauea Iki in 1959. We walked across it last summer

The Hawai'i That Was: Walking a Lake of Fire in "the Little Source of Great Spewing"
In 1959, a huge eruption produced gigantic columns of spewing lava and filled a depression creating a lake of fire. It's still hot today nearly 60 years later. We walked across the abyss.

The Hawai'i That Was: Pu'u O'o, the Volcano We Couldn't See
The present day lava flows at Kilauea originate at a vent called Pu'u O'o a few miles east of the summit. We didn't get to see it on this trip, but I flew right over it in 2009. Here are the pictures!

The Hawai'i That Was: Living on Uncertain Ground - The First Human Wave Arrives
Hawai'i was one of the last uninhabited places on planet Earth. We get a first look at what life was like for the earliest colonizers, and begin to understand how they changed the islands.

The Hawai'i That Was: How Can the Biggest Mountain in the World Stay So Hidden?
It was a bit strange that we were on Mauna Loa, the world's biggest mountain, and barely ever saw it. The weather on the Big Island can be fickle! No worries though, I found a lot of images in the archives.

The Hawai'i That Was: Mauna O Wakea, the Opening to the Heavens, and the Realm of Ice
There is a second gigantic volcano on the Big Island that is taller than Mauna Loa, but of somewhat less bulk. Mauna Kea is considered the realm of the gods, and in a sense modern technology reflects this as some of the world's most powerful observatories on the summit search the Universe for understanding.

The Hawai'i That Was: A Tale of Two Kipukas, and Thoughts on the Rarest Plants in the World
Ever wondered about the world's rarest plant? How about one that existed as a single specimen? That died? Someone preserved just a few seeds, so it may come back (there are about 200 planted in the kipuka today). The role of kipukas in preserving the Hawai'i that was is described in this post.

The Hawai'i That Had Never Been: A Mountain That is Younger Than Me, Mauna Ulu
An exploration of a mountain that didn't exist when I was in grade school, along with another of Hawai'i's fascinating kipukas. Mauna Ulu is a fascinating place to explore.

The Hawai'i That Was: There was a Monster in the Water at Laupahoehoe
The tragedy of the 1946 tsunami at Laupahoehoe, and how it saved hundreds of thousands in the Pacific Ocean later on, but didn't in the Indian Ocean in 2004.

The Hawai'i That Was: Where are the Rivers? Waterfalls on the Big Island
Many parts of the Big Island have no rivers despite near constant rainfall. In other places, there are some really nice waterfalls! We explore some of them in this post.

The Hawai'i That Was: A Veritable Rainbow of Sand (and cute gratuitous sea turtles)
Did you know that there are beaches in Hawai'i that are made of gemstones? Or that beaches range in color from black to white with a whole rainbow in-between? Lets explore a few.

The Hawai'i That Was: Look at the Cute Squirrel! (NOT a squirrel)
You will no doubt see a squirrel-like creature on some the Hawaiian Islands. It's not, it's a mongoose, which is an important control on pests in other lands. In Hawai'i it IS the pest. It's had a devastating affect on the native birds of the islands.

The Hawai'i That Was: Exploring Pololu Valley on an Unstable "Dead" Volcano
The Big Island is not noted for having huge coastal cliffs, but there are some nice ones on the northeast coastline. The origin of the cliff is a notable story as well, that of a gigantic prehistoric landslide.

The Hawai'i That Was: What Happened to the Stones of Pololu? A Look at Pu'ukohala Heiau
This is the story of the Pu'ukohala Heiau, one of the most intriguing archaeological sites in the Hawaiian Islands. It was built by King Kamehameha I prior to his uniting of the islands under single rule. The stones they used to build it came from the other side of the island.

The Hawai'i That Was: Lapakahi, the Kind of Place Where the Rest of Them Lived 
History seems to always be about the kings and presidents. We usually hear little about what life was like for the "commoners". Lapakahi is an archaeological site that protects a commoner's village on the northeast coast of the Big Island.

The Hawai'i That Was: Have We Got Some Real Estate for You! Exploring Kaloko-Honokohau National Historical Park
Hawai'i has a number of national parks, and one of them seems a strange choice, backed up against a Costo store near Kona. It's a barren lava flow, but treasures are hidden within its boundaries.

The Hawai'i That Was: Pu'uhonua o Honaunau, the Place of Sanctuary That Might Not Be So Safe (Geologically)
Can you ever feel safe? There are different kinds of 'safe' in Hawai'i. A few hundred years ago, small infractions could get you killed, but you could find safety and forgiveness if you could make it to a place like Pu'uhonua o Honaunau. Geologically though? Maybe not so much.

The Hawai'i That Was: Watching the Destruction of the Islands in Real Time
Flying from the Big Island to Kaua'i is like riding a time machine both backwards and forwards. We see the progression of the erosion and subsidence of the islands over the last 5 million years, but we are also seeing the future of the Big Island, five million years into the future.

The Hawai'i That Was: We Arrive on Kaua'i and Find the Beauty of Age
The Big Island and Kaua'i are separated by only a few hundred miles, but they might as well be worlds apart. They are different from each other in many ways. We begin an exploration of the oldest of the main Hawaiian Islands.

The Hawai'i That Was: History and Beauty at Ke'e Beach and the Na Pali Coast.
On the north side of Hawai'i is a spectacular coast of some of the highest beach cliffs in the world, and the remains of a hula school that operated for perhaps 800 years. Not many universities in the world can make such a claim.

The Hawai'i That Was: An Idyllic Paradise on the North Shore of Kaua'i. Sort of.
Hanalei Bay is one of the most beautiful places on planet Earth. But even paradise can be a place of danger. Why are all the houses built on stilts?

The Hawai'i That Was: Hanalei, Where the Waterfalls Seem to Stream From the Clouds
The north side of Kaua'i captures the warm moist tropical trade winds, and collects prodigious amounts of rainfall. The mountains here are the wettest places on Earth, with one spot that gets nearly 500 inches of rain per year.

The Hawai'i That Was: Rising Out of Depression on Kaua'i, and Sleeping Giants
Have you ever wondered where that unique mountain in the opening of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" was located? Actually dozens of movies have been filmed on Kaua'i somewhere. We also climb the Sleeping Giant, a slumbering hero of the native Hawaiians.

The Hawai'i That Was: Into the Last Stand of Wilderness in Kaua'i, the Alaka'i Swamp
We take a hike into the last refuge of many of the native species of the Hawaiian Islands, a high-altitude "swamp" on the Alaka'i Plateau. It is an absolutely unique environment, unlike any on Earth.

The Hawai'i That Was: What the Worst Disaster You Can Think of? The Terror of Na Pali...
The cliffs of the Na Pali is one of the most incredible shorelines in the world, and are stunningly beautiful. On the other hand, they are evidence of one of the most violent of disasters, one that was so intense that it sent waves crashing against the other islands more than a thousand feet high.

The Hawai'i That Was: The Lost Wetlands of the Mana Plain on Kaua'i
A portion of the west coast of Kaua'i exemplifies the conflict between the modern world and the natural environment that existed before. Volunteers are attempting to rebuild some of the wetlands that once existed on the Mana Plain.

The Hawai'i That Was: Waimea Canyon, the View You "Have" to Earn...
Our trip was near an end, and we took one last hike, one that end at the brink of a place so spectacular that it's been called the "Grand Canyon of the Pacific". We learned about the need to "earn" a view.

The Hawai'i That Was: The Final Refuge
For the our final blog in the series (for now at least), we have a look at Waimea Canyon, a deep gorge produced when half the island threatened to collapse and sink into the sea. We end with the realization that the natural environment that once existed in Hawai'i still survives in isolated corners here and there. These are the last refuge for many species, and many of us.