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HVO Centennial Poster Contest
This contest is open to all 4^th grade students enrolled in Hawaiʻi Island public, private, charter, or home schools.

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HVO—100 years ago this month (November)

To set the stage for our 100th anniversary next year, we will reflect over the next few months on events leading to the founding of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory in 1912. After observing and documenting Kīlauea's volcanic activity from July 11 to October 27, 1911, Frank Perret began his journey back to Italy. From Hilo, he traveled to Honolulu, where he delivered a lecture at the YMCA Hall on November 10. Impressed by Perret's work, the Honolulu merchants who had formed the Hawaiian Volcano Research Association tried to convince him to stay in Hawaiʻi. But Perret was adamant about returning to Mount Vesuvius, and sailed away on November 13. Before he left, however, he assured the merchants that he would try to stay involved in the effort to establish a volcano observatory at Kīlauea and that he might return to Hawaiʻi in a few years. Frank Perret photo of Puʻu Lēʻahi (Diamond Head) on Oʻahu in 1911. On November 18-19, Lorrin A. Thurston, who was determined to fill the gap left by Perret's departure, traveled to Kīlauea, where he found the lava level in Halemaʻumaʻu Crater significantly higher with frequent overflows covering the crater floor. Near the end of November, word reached Hawaiʻi that Thomas Jaggar would arrive at Kīlauea in early January 1912 to continue the volcano observations begun by Perret. Continued next month... HVO—100 years ago this month (October) HVO—100 years ago this month (September) HVO—100 years ago this month (August) HVO—100 years ago this month (July)

Hawaiian volcanoes—This month in history (November)

November 21, 1935 An eruption began in Mauna Loa's summit caldera on November 21, 1935, and soon migrated down its northeast rift zone. On November 27, a radial vent well outside the rift zone erupted on the volcano's north flank, sending pāhoehoe flows into the saddle between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. Lava flows then turned toward Hilo, advancing a mile per day and alarming residents. In an effort to divert the flows, then Lieutenant Colonel George S. Patton was called on to oversee a U.S. Army operation, in which military planes dropped bombs near the eruptive vent on December 27. Thomas Jaggar declared the operation a success, but the eruption ended on January 2, 1936, so the efficacy of disrupting lava channels with bombs remains disputed. November 14, 1959 Just after 8:00 p.m. on November 14, 1959, a fissure erupted on the south wall of Kīlauea Iki Crater. Within a day, multiple vents along the fissure had consolidated into one main vent. Over the next five weeks, lava fountains gushed from the vent in 17 separate episodes, flooding the crater with a lava lake about 135 m (440 ft) deep. Lava fragments falling from the high fountains also formed a cinder-and-spatter cone named Puʻu Puaʻi (gushing hill) on the rim of Kīlauea Iki. Three days before the eruption ended on December 20, 1959, lava blasted 580 m (1,900 ft) above the vent—the highest lava fountain ever measured in Hawaiʻi. November 29, 1975 Hawaiʻi Island residents were jarred awake early on the morning of November 29, 1975, by a magnitude-7.2 earthquake—the largest quake since the devastating 1868 earthquake, which had an estimated magnitude of 7.9. The damaging 1975 earthquake was located west of Kalapana on Hawaiʻi Island's southeastern coast, at a depth of about 8.5 km (5.3 mi). It was closely followed by a tsunami that caused the deaths of two backcountry campers in Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park, where extensive ground cracking caused heavy road damage. Lava also briefly erupted at Kīlauea's summit, apparently triggered by the vigorous ground shaking.