Hawaii was formed as the Pacific Plate slid over a hotspot in the earth’s mantle. The Big Island is the most recent of the islands to form and is still volcanically active.
Awesome desolation surrounds the crater of the most recently active lava pit, Halema’uma’u Crater.
The plume is composed of steam and sulphur dioxide, which when the wind blows the wrong way requires evacuation from the area as air quality gets very bad indeed.
One feels very small in the presence of this kind of power.
photodyssey 