Trails: First Generation

Mount Kilauea, Hawaii

Mount Kilauea, HawaiiUnsteady rivers and streams of lava hardened in its search for the cooling waters of the sea. Soft spots formed, and rocks shifted as Alex slipped and slid across the flow.

Alex stopped on a hardened rock and glanced back. The impressions of his footprints added pressure and soil contamination to alter the lava's composition. Like an ant encased in amber, the soil would remain in the lava until it eroded. His dad published papers on it years ago.

Ahead a car sized, hardened volcanic boulder tilted at an unlikely angle on its journey to the sea. Over the decades since it formed, Kilauea's lava rivers raged around it, tugging it one way, or another. For now, it provided a resting spot in the active lava flows. Alex climbed to its summit until the rest of his dad's graduate student research team caught up.

The team scrambled through the lava flow maze. Half-cooled lava streams, with bits of fresh red lava oozed like pimples on the Earth's surface. When stepped on, they erupted, and let out the boiling liquid, to harden into sharp, tangled shapes.

Alex's pimple-covered cheek itched and stung at the thought. Unconsciously, he reached to scratch them. The pus oozed out, as his skin repaired itself. Lava-splattered gloves would damage his skin more. Later, he'd clean them out good. For now, he let his hand slide back down to his side.

"Alex." His dad caught up. "You shouldn't go so far ahead of us. Please slow down while we collect samples."

"Sure Dad." Alex grinned. "I'll wait, and move slow. Possibly being trapped by lava as it breaks through, rather than skimming over it."

His dad groaned as he sat down to rest a moment.

The graduate students fluttered around on the lava, taking pictures and samples to study back in the lab. One of the last field trips of the semester, most were steady on their feet as they scrambled about the field.

Alex had walked on this field all his life. Every visit with his dad and the students there were massive changes. When he tripped to avoid a lava bubble burst by a new student on her first excursion, it had sent him reeling back onto the scalpel sharp lava, leaving a jagged ridged scar. That had been twelve years ago.

He glanced down and verified his heavy pants were tucked well into his splattered heat resistant boots. A sharp splinter wouldn't sneak between his boot tops and pants today. He kept the broken tip they had pulled from his leg in his wallet. Any trip he went on he carried it for good luck to appease the Goddess Pele.

Lava, the embodiment of Goddess Pele, flowed steadily, as it had for years. Small quakes, unfelt by the casual observer prevented the furnace deep inside from skimming over and plugging closed. Each new flow added life and land to island. As long as the flow was steady, the volcano wouldn't erupt dangerously like so many others did. Unexpectedly killing plants, animals, and humans.

His dad meant well and wanted to keep him safe. Dad was all the family he had left. Better cheer him up by encouraging a story he knew well.

"Dad, how far are we from Loihi?"

The lava bubbled at their feet as the students came closer. Some gathered nearer the sea, a hundred yards away. Others rambled further inland, close to where the remains of a road were baked and transformed as lava flowed over and under it.

His dad shifted. "Less than ten miles from shore, and nigh three thousand feet under the surface. A blink geologically before Loihi's lava flow allows it to rise to the surface. Many human generations before it will surface. Someday, it'll rise, and seabirds will rest there. People will be able to see it from here. Maybe almost swim there, if Kilauea erupts long enough."

His dad's graduate students chattered as they clambered to a stop below the boulder. Insulated backpacks bulged with lava collected in tiny jars. Several stopped to rest and drink from water bottles carefully stored away from the collections. Tom measured the temperature in one nearby fresh split.

Alex shifted his own backpack and lifted his collecting tool. "I want to collect a few samples myself. My project is to compare Kilauea's lava that erupts on land, which later hardens in the sea, with Loihi's lava that both erupts and hardens in the sea. I know you've done the experiment before."

"Careful son." His dad reached out. His hand dropped to his knees, and his eyes focused on the ground. "You aren't a graduate student yet. You don't have to take samples and run experiments."

The strained look in his dad's face meant memories of his mom, and how she died flooded the present. Mom had been his dad's partner as wife, explorer, scientist, interpreter, and recorder. Collecting volcanic gas readings last summer at Mt. Etna a quivering quake had unbalanced dad. She managed to prevent his fall; and in doing so, had fallen to her own death.

Dad had returned a shaken, broken shell, afraid to do the work he had spent a lifetime on. A serious limp had kept him out of the field one semester. Alex had led the class fieldwork then. Even now, Dad tottered behind him, unable to keep up. Whether fear or health prevented his normal push through the flows, Alex couldn't decide. The doctors said he was fine. Of course, how many of them had traipsed across the flows?

"Tom, when was the last quake?" Alex yelled to one of the graduate students, also his best friend since childhood.

Tom checked his phone. "Three hours ago, a 2.0. Should be safe for a while."

Alex glanced back at his dad. "I'll tie a rope around my waist. Tom can spot me, so I don't fall in. The waves aren't bad here."

His dad waved him on, with a wistful look on his face.

Alex slipped and slid through the loosened lava flow to the ocean's edge. A nearby spot would be easy to step into the water. A few streams trickled all the way to the sea here.

Tom placed his backpack on the boulder. He followed Alex down the trail, disturbing as little of the lava flow as possible.

A few feet from the ocean's rocky edge, Alex tied the rope around his waist. Here the lava had hardened several times as the streams shifted, always following the flow of least resistance. The edges were jagged and dangerous. A slip here could mean serious blood loss. No wonder the natives had used obsidian arrow points for generations before Europeans arrived.

Alex glanced down. His legs were still protected. A deep breath, and a moment later, he passed the line to Tom.

Tom stood ready to brace against the larger rocks if needed.

Alex visually checked the lava flow again. Eyes weren't enough here. If the cliffs were lower here, he could reach over and collect without climbing down. He'd have to slip down the embankment into the ocean. By climbing into the ocean, he could have his pick of stream exits to sample and experiment on. The water would lap the top of his boots. If he missed the hardened lava, and opened a fresh boiling stream too soon, he might land wrong on the jagged ocean floor. This was the lowest spot on the nearby beach.

Alex searched the ground, and the side of the seven-foot cliff with his lava collection tool. A fancy name for a three-foot long metal walking stick with an adjustable cup to collect lava samples.

The rope pulled tight. Tom waited, watching to be sure the jagged edges wouldn't fray the rope sending Alex to the bottom faster than intended.

Alex sat down and grasped the side of the cliff, to slide over the edge. His feet skidded across the moist rocky surface. Holding the edge, he slipped over, his feet finding the way his tool had shown by memory. He scaled down, no visible damage to the rope. His feet reached the ocean floor. Or what passed for ocean floor here.

Lava flowed openly from a vent nearby directly into the ocean, bubbling and hissing as it cascading into the cooler waters. This batch would make one good sample. He filled the cup, chalked a note on it, and stuck it in his insulated backpack.

A wave sloshed.

Steam billowed in his face.

His hands reached for the cliff to maintain his balance.

Lava that had never been exposed to air bubbled up through the remnants of former land based lava to form pillow lava.

Alex attached a second cup to his collection tool. Maintaining his footing was critical. To step in a pillow lava bubble as it burst could be deadly. A step forward and he reached below the surface of the ocean with nothing to steady himself.

Sample obtained, he stepped back. A look out to sea, he could imagine what Loihi would look like from here one day. Its mound slowly rising, invisible, deep under the waves. He stepped forward into the waves that splashed his heavy-duty boots. His collection pole steadied him against the current. The ground shifted and the waves lapped gently in the breeze.

The ground beneath him shivered slightly. Streams shifted around him. Most people would never notice. Walking on the edge of a volcano, his life depended on his paying attention to tiny details of the ever-changing crust.

"Alex, that was likely a 2.3," his dad shouted.

Alex nodded and turned around. His collection tool tested for firm areas to step. Lava shifted its flow after even a tiny quake. The climb back up the cliff didn't take long with Tom keeping the rope taunt.

Tom waited until he was a safe distance from the water to toss the rope back to him.

Alex dropped the collection cup to the middle hook, and used it to walk back to where the rest of the team was. His dad had evaluated the data of lava gathered from Loihi years before, and again last month. Now, Alex would compile and compare his data with ongoing research to determine what changes, if any, had formed in the Kilauea rock based on where it erupted and hardened.

Alex helped his dad walk back to the van. Stumbling over rocks he knew well was not a good sign. His dad barely lifted his head enough to see more than directly below him.

"Professor, tell us a story about one of your travels," Tom said from a few feet away.

His dad grabbed hold of his collection tool and stared off into space a moment. He nodded and launched into the story of an early trip to a volcano in South America before he met Alex's mom.

Tom and a few students listened closely as they hiked the trail back to the vans. Other students talked amongst themselves, ignoring the story. His father continued the story on the drive back to campus. He reached the part where the volcano vomited baseball sized chunks into the air as he parked carefully to avoid dumping the collection containers.

Tom waited for Alex.

All the other students would hurry to the lab room, leaving no open stations for them to work together. Alex's samples would have to wait until later to be tested. As a second year college student, he had no right to graduate lab space, or time, since he wasn't officially in his dad's class.

Tom's mom, a professor in the anthropology department, had given them access to her lab room as well. They could work undisturbed while her students were in the field.

Alex dropped the backpack down and sat his cooling lava samples on a teetering pile of papers. The mess on the lab tables indicated several simultaneous projects. Science was a messy business, and even with the clutter, this was home, surrounded by paper and equipment.

Plenty of evaluation equipment at his disposal without having to wait, as long as his didn't lose his notes in the mess. No coworkers meant no one to bounce questions, or ideas off of, either. Tom would work in here too, to keep him company. It wasn't the same as a whole class full of ideas and thoughts. Alex was used to theorizing on his own. He dreamed of sharing opinions with others to catch flaws in his own work.

Obtaining a full chemical analysis on the sample he collected would take several days. Alex pulled out the printout from last month's Loihi expedition. A scuba diving professor had taken a few graduate students with him for that trip. First time his dad had missed an underwater excursion. This report would give him something to compare to.

Tom turned on lights and machines to begin the experiments. It would be a long, quiet afternoon.

Alex cleared a space and set up the first few samples, labeling them with a marker and some string strung across the floor.

Sounds of classic country music flooded the room. Tom grinned sheepishly as he pulled out his phone.

Alex tried not to listen to Tom's short conversation.

"Alex," Tom said. "Your dad is looking for us. Some news he wants us to see. Guess your phone is off?"

Alex sighed. "It's on the charger. Can we leave everything here?"

"Should be able to. I'll tell mom it's here. Maybe Shelly will come in and finish for you."

Alex grinned. "Hope not."

Shelly tried to take over his projects, while ignoring him. Though, why she studied anthropology, when she wanted to be a volcanologist, was beyond him.

Alex sighed and sat the experiment notes under the equipment so they would be distinguishable to Tom's mom and her students.

They hurried to his dad's lab.

At the door, his dad tapped his foot, and held a paper. Noise and laughter billowed from the lab room behind him.

"Professor!" The words echoed from the room.

His dad handed Alex the page, and answered the student's question.

Alex took the sheet.

The notice covered a 4.5 earthquake in New Mexico.

A 4.5 would do some damage, to weakly built structures. Then he noticed the location, San Andres Northern Mountain Fault. White Sands, the nuclear testing grounds, contained this fault. Below was a list of more quakes, some larger, some smaller that had clustered in the same area over the last two days. The page slipped through his fingers. "They weren't testing were they?"

"No. Thankfully, nothing was being tested. There have been an unusual series of earthquakes in the general area the last few weeks." His dad shifted as he stood. Standing still too long took a painful toll.

Alex glanced back at the page. The San Andreas Fault in California had also slipped slightly. Many small quakes were clustered there as well. A starred note at the bottom lumped clusters occurring around the globe in an unusual steady stream. None sounded serious in the larger scheme of things, kinda like the quakes on Kilauea. Alex's neck prickled. He looked up at his dad.

"Son, the dormant volcano, Sierra Blanca is showing signs of a new bulge. There is also a recent uprising under parts of the Carrizozo Malpais lava flows."

Alex's hand dropped to his side, as his eyes closed. Earthquakes could trigger volcanoes, or volcanoes could trigger earthquakes. In some cases, they happened to occur together. "That's not good news. I thought the hot spots had shifted away from there."

His dad placed his hands on his shoulders. "That's what everyone thought. The volcano here is relatively stable. The semester will end in a month, then I could prepare to go. They need someone now. You are young, and you know almost as much as I do."

Alex gulped. "Thanks dad."

"I'm sending you and Tom, with all the data and equipment we can spare. We need you both. You're young, strong, and smart. You've absorbed plenty, and can call for assistance anytime." His dad stared into the lab room as he spoke.

Alex was surprised. The island had been his home longer than he could remember. Even vacations had been with both parents to nearby islands, never to the mainland.

His dad stepped back. "At the first sign of trouble, I want you to call, and come home, immediately. I don't want to lose either of you. The government wants to be sure trouble isn't brewing in the next few weeks."

Being at the cutting edge of science, it was Alex's chance to make a name for himself. The hallway spun.

His dad reached out to steady him. "I wish I could go. Guess it's your turn now."

"When do we leave?"

"Go home and pack. Be back in an hour. Your plane leaves in two. It will take your strength to help carry all the equipment. I can't do it anymore." His feet shuffled down the hallway with a tear in the corner of his eye. He paused to rest his knee, and limped back into the lab of excited graduate students. "I need," his dad's voice trailed off as several students nosily jumped to help collect equipment.

"Alex?" Tom whispered, placing his hand on Alex's shoulder. "I'll drive. We can both grab our stuff in no time." Tom called his mom as he fumbled for his keys.

Alex couldn't speak. Book knowledge, and the knowledge of Hawaii volcanoes, he had plenty of. Real field knowledge, he didn't have. Thoughts and emotions, unrecognizable, fluttered through his brain as he followed his friend down the hall.

Going to the mainland wouldn't be a pleasure hike across the islands. He grabbed shorts for the New Mexico summer sun, as well as another lava stained pair of pants. A picture of his mom and dad with him on Mauna Loa five years ago landed atop the pile of assorted clothes.

"Ready?" Tom hollered up the stairs.

Alex gulped as he looked around the room. The only home he had known. Somehow, it didn't look the same; as if he were seeing it for the first time. It was the same as this morning, except for the bag on the bed.

"Sure," he said. "Be right there."

Curtains billowed in the breeze.

A chill spiraled up his spine. Alex grabbed his phone and charger, shoving them in his pocket. He picked up his bag and hurried down the stairs.

Chapter 3