July 27, 2010
Appreciate Help On Volcanoes
With minor local exceptions, the rocks of the Huge Island of Hawaii are produced up virtually completely of eruptive volcanic effluent-lava and ash, and sediment derived from eroding and weathering lava and ash. As such, it doesn't seem a likely spot to hunt fossils.
Mexico's Popocateptl Volcano is a steep volcanic cone located about 45 miles southeast of Mexico City and rises beyond 17,000 feet in elevation. Iztaccihuatl meaning, "white woman" in Nahuatl. This mountain truly has four peaks, the tallest reaches 17,158 feet and many see the silhouette as resembling that of your sleeping woman.
Iztaccihuatl Volcano is situated subsequent towards Popocateptl Volcano. Iztaccihuatl is an extinct volcano. Popocatepetl is still active having spewed smoke and ash as recently as 2001. Popocateptl means "Smoking Mountain" within the Nahuatl language. As Aztec mythology has it, Popocateptl and Iztaccihuatl were once humans who were deeply in love. The legend is about two star-crossed lovers, the young brave warrior Popocatepetl plus the princess Iztaccihuatl. Iztaccihuatl's father who was a mighty ruler, placed a demand on Popocatepetl before he could take Iztaccihuatl as his bride. Story has it that Popocatepetl went off for war with.
Popocatepetl won the battle and was ready to return to Iztacchuatle when word reached the ruler that the warrior had been slain. Upon hearing the false news, the princess, Iztaccihuatl falls ill and succumbs to her deep sorrow, dying of the broken heart.
Popocateptl carries Iztaccihuatl's body to the mountains where by he has a funeral pyre built for his princess and himself. Grief stricken, he dies subsequent to his beloved. The Gods, touched by the plight in the lovers, turns the humans into mountains to ensure that they can finally be together. Today, they remain with Popocatepetl residing over his princess Iztacclhuatl.
As a child, my mind, when not in fact occupied with thoughts of dinosaurs, was chiefly occupied with thoughts of volcanoes or thoughts of fossils. It's scarcely surprising, then, that I grew up to be a geologist, but when I eventually washed-up for the shores in the Big Island, I thought I'd landed in heaven-five volcanoes, three of them active! But as I explored my new house I found far more and more examples of where Hawaii's volcanoes had preserved fossils of plant and animal life.
More delicate fossils are contained in ash deposits, but so far, these have been only marginally explored.
Lava Tree State Monument: Let's start down in Puna District, just a few miles south of Pahoa Town. At Lava Trees State Monument fingers of lava poke vertically at the sky, remnants of your flow that that passed by means of a wet ohi'a tree forest in 1790.
Mauna Loa Tree Molds, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park: But what occurs if the lava doesn't drain aside and leave the fingers behind, but rather cools in spot close to the trees? An example of this is usually found along the Mauna Loa Road, inside the part of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park that is north of Highway 11. Here, big acacia koa trees (the same type of trees which are currently growing close to the parking area) were buried 10-30 feet deep in lava erupted by Kilauea some 700-800 years ago. The cooling was rapid enough to preserve the shape, even the texture with the bark from the trees within the lava, though the trees themselves burned away.
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