ONCE THE LAVA STOPPED
See what has changed on the island of Hawaii since Kilauea erupted last year. Hawaii Volcanoes National Park has been dramatically altered, and there’s a new museum about volcanism. Homes and roads were destroyed, but the above black sand beach in Isaac H
PAHOA, Hawaii — The eightmile-long river of lava that poured down the slopes of Kilauea volcano on the island of Hawaii last spring destroyed nearly everything in its path — roads, houses and cars. It upended lives and the tourism industry, scaring away about $480 million in business.
But part of what it left behind offers a glimmer of hope for the battered land and economy: a new black sand beach.
In early December, I visited the island to see what the destructive lava flow had done to the largest of the Hawaiian Islands and to visit the newly formed crescent beach at Isaac Hale Beach Park, also known as Pohoiki.
When the lava flowed down the slopes of Kilauea’s Lower East Rift Zone, many people assumed the beach park would be destroyed, but the lava stopped 230 feet from the boat ramp and emptied into the sea. Instead of destroying Pohoiki, it created a black sand beach, two new surf breaks and three new thermal ponds.
As I drove the narrow, two-lane highway known as the Red Road (Hawaii 137) around the rocky coastline of lower Puna, I was reminded that this wild, tropical terrain at the base of Kilauea is unlike anywhere else in the islands.
Until recently, many visitors came here by land or sea hoping to catch a glimpse of molten lava.
Now they are coming to see not what was destroyed but what was created.
Gathering place
This isn’t the first time a black sand beach has been produced during Kilauea’s 35 years of ongoing eruptions, nor is it the only one born of last year’s eruption, but it is the largest black sand beach created in the islands in recent times.
When word got out there was now a black sand beach at Pohoiki, visitors and residents hiked over a rugged lava field to be among the first to see it.
Leomana Turalde, a native Hawaiian, traveled from Hilo with his younger brother and his daughter. The creation of a beach was a lesson for them, he said, about Hawaiian culture.
“I tell them Hawaiian language and culture lives through the chant and the dances and the songs that we have, so if we don’t go out and experience things and record them and take note and just be the first here, then how do [they] expect the tradition that we carry to continue on?” he said.
Pohoiki has served the community as a family gathering place for generations. “When the lava was coming down, a lot of the community was sharing memories about certain spots,” Turalde said. “Those areas are gone, but it’s exciting for us now that we have this new beach … a huge black sand beach we didn’t have before.”
How this beach came to be begins with hot lava and cold water, said Tina Neal, scientist in charge at the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, which has temporarily relocated to Hilo from Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.
“Hot molten lava interacting with cold ocean water produces explosions,” Neal said. “Part of that is wave action breaking up the new lava. All of that produces a source of sand, and that sand is carried by the ocean current down the coastline to the places where it will naturally accumulate.”
The long, wide beach is gorgeous, shaped like a crescent moon. The sand is a mix of textures, from fine grains to small, rough rocks, which, in time, will be ground down