Dec 25, 2018
Heart shaped lava tree
This is an image from 1968, taken looking down on top of a lava flow from Kilauea.
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Heart shaped lava tree
This is an image from 1968, taken looking down on top of a lava flow from Kilauea.
Truffulava Trees
Dr. Seuss’s classic tome “The Lorax” features Truffula Trees, which as drawn have thin trunks and expand into a large tuft at the top. Through spattering lava, Kilauea has managed to create a similar effect out of basalt, creating lava Truffula Trees or (and I don’t know how the USGS didn’t combine the words) Truffulava trees!
When Hawaiian lava flows past a tree, the tree typically ignites and burns, as you’d expect. But, the common ohia tree found in Hawaii contains a large amount of water, so while it is igniting the water also cools the lava into a hardened cylinder around the trunk. Even after the tree has fully burned away, the outline of the trunk will often be preserved as a lava tree. The tufts at the top, in this shot, are formed by lava that spattered upward and landed on it as gas pockets in the lava burst.
-JBB
Image credit: USGS https://flic.kr/p/Ergyvd
Lava Trees State Park: http://bit.ly/1OQ0dgq http://seuss.wikia.com/wiki/Truffula_Tree
Heart shaped lava tree This is an image from 1968, taken looking down on top of a lava flow from Kilauea. Lava flows from Hawaiian volcanoes often encounter the native ohia trees, which make up a large portion of the rainforests on that island. Those trees hold a lot of water in their structures. When lava hits those trees, the water boils off and the tree burns away, but there is enough water to cool a cylinder of lava around the place where the tree trunk used to be. When the lava flow drains away, these chilled cylinders of lava still stand tall as lava trees. This photo looks down the heart of one that happened to leave a heart-shaped impression in the center, with lava still flowing underneath. -JBB Image credit: USGS/Don Swanson https://www.flickr.com/photos/usgeologicalsurvey/14057394848/in/photostream/
Mauna Ulu, Hawaii. I found this tree, preserved by the lava that engulfed it and now providing shelter for ferns and other vegetation, in Volcano National Park.
Allan Macintyre Lava Tree from Recent Events
