Hawaii Volcanic Research
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Hawaiian Islands are Young- Not more than a few thousand years
By Professor Echeverria, 2018.
The recent violent activity and eruption on Kilauea, at the Big Island of Hawaii is giving us an impressive lesson on the formation of these Islands. We stand in awe at the creative and destructive power of lava at the same time. Our hearts go out to our neighbor residents and we publish this with respect for our affected friends. We regret to see how many lives are being changed and or homes destroyed by the path of the lava. This is all very emotional to us who live in Hawaii as well. Our simpathy goes to everyone there in Pahoa and sorrounding affected areas.
We are seeing first hand account how the island of Hawaii is changing and growing all the time. At the same time we see how Creation is taking place right before our very eyes. And this didn't take millions of years ! https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/hawaii/kilauea/current-activity.html
According to Clarey (2016), "geologists attribute the formation of the islands to recent activity... Geophysicist John Baumgardner demonstrated that the plates would have moved much more quickly..(we presume he is speaking about during the documented global flood catastrophe)—at rates of several yards per second—creating the Hawaiian Islands just thousands of years ago (Clarey, 2016).
Recent studies as early as 1970 and 2014, regarding the newest (Loihi) Volcano to rise out of the sea floor at the Big Island of Hawaii, University of Hawaii researchers found out exactly what we are asserting- That at least one of its newest Island, Loihi is "a young, active volcano".
According to Rubin, a Professor for the Dept. of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Hawaii. "It was revealed that Loihi was a young, active volcano, rather than an old dead seamount (sic) from a bygone aeon. The volcano is mantled with young and old lava flows and is activity venting hydrothermal fluids at it's summit and south rift zone. " (Rubin, 2014).
Rubin, does however believe that the rest of the Islands are of a Uniformitarian age, He states on another web page that "The two primary volcanoes that make up Oahu (where Honolulu is) have not erupted for well over a million years!". https://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/HCV/haw_formation.html
Nevertheless, we sustain, that all Islands, just as Loihi are rather young (Clarey, 2016) for reasons stated throughout the rest of this article.
Images courtesy of IRC.org.
Clarey (2016) continues, "The rocks and landforms of Hawaii also tell a different story from the secular version (that the Islands are millions of years old). Lava tubes and waterfalls, common on all the islands, are evidence of youth. Lava tubes form as natural conduits to transport molten lava, but today they are merely hollow, cave-like “pipes.” "These tubes cannot exist for millions of years without collapsing. Steep valleys, steps, and waterfalls should have long eroded away, forming a gentle, subdued landscape over the course of millions of years. Yet, we still see lava tubes, steep valleys, and dramatic waterfalls on all the islands."
We have lived and worked only a few miles from the erupting Kilauea volcano and have seen first hand the awsome power of its eruption. Additionally, if you visit any of the lava tubes in any of the Islands, as we have - both for leisure and research - you can easily observe extensive layers of lava on every island. "Stacked lava layers are evidence of rapid volcanic deposition, placing layer upon layer, with no evidence of time or erosion between any flow."
The strongest evidence that our Islands, here in the beautiful State, are young has to do with the erosion rate of the beaches and the soil. The facts show that the measured erosion rates along the coastlines of the islands could not have gone on for millions of years. According to Clarey, "Scientists studying photographs and maps since 1900 found that most beaches on Kaua‘i, O‘ahu, and Maui experience erosion averaging 0.4 feet/year, or about five inches per year."
Additionally, the United States Geological Survey Director Marcia McNutt explains this phenomenom very well:
"The inevitable fate of the Hawaiian Islands millions of years into the future is seen to the northwest in the spires of French Frigate Shoals and the remnants of other once mighty islands, ancestors of today’s Hawaii, but now sunken beneath the sea through the forces of waves, rivers, and the slow subsidence of the seafloor."
This erosion process that is taking place in these Islands is very pronounced, and it will completely destroy the islands in only a few hundred thousand years. If we do the math, we realize how fast our Islands are eroding. For instance, Clarey (2016) said, “we get 76 miles of erosion in only one million years (at 0.4 ft/yr), which would completely eliminate the islands—except possibly the Big Island where volcanism is still occurring since it currently sits on the hot spot.
USGS says: "Beach erosion is a chronic problem along most open-ocean shores of the United States" " It is common to find that the construction of one seawall on a beach leads to proliferation of additional seawalls. Armoring a chronically eroding coast leads to beach loss (Fletcher, et al., 1997)." It continues saying that "Beach erosion is the dominant trend of shoreline change in Hawaii." (USGS-OFR)
Rate of erosion for the islands
The USAGS adds, "The beaches of Kauai, Oahu, and Maui are eroding at an average of:
"long-term rate for all transects (shoreline measurement locations) of -0.11 ± 0.01 m/yr (meters
per year) and an average short-term rate of -0.06 ± 0.01 m/yr. The majority, or 70 percent,
of transects on the three islands indicate a trend of erosion in the long term and 63 percent
indicate a trend of erosion in the short term. A total of 22 kilometers of beach, or 9 percent of the total length of beach studied, was completely lost to erosion over the past century." (USGS et al., 2011)
Notice, that this loss of 13.6 miles, or 22 kilometers, was only in the past century.
Another study by the University of Hawaii Study (*Where I had the priviledge to teach) says low-lying islands uninhabitable by mid-century https://www.hawaii.edu/news/2018/04/25/low-lying-islands-uninhabitable-by-mid-century/
Aerial photograph of Kwajalein Atoll showing its low-lying islands and coral reefs. Photo: Thomas Reiss, Pacific Coastal and Marine Science Center. Image courtesy of University of Hawai'i News.
Therefore, If these beautiful islands were really millions of years old, they should have eroded beneath the sea long ago. (Clarey, 2016).
Image courtesy of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_(island)
Jennifer Young (2014) said in her blog that " “By December 2012, flows had covered 125.5 km2 (48.4 mi2) with about 4 km3 (1 mi3) of lava, and had added 202 hectares (500 acres) of new land to Kīlauea’s southeastern shore."
https://www.decodedscience.org/kilauea-volcanic-eruption-hawaii-just-keeps-growing/50501
Clarey, sums up what we, who live in these beautiful Islands witness on a daily basis: "As each of the islands move off the hot spot (Figure 2), they cool, sink, and rapidly erode away in just thousands of years. Once off the hot spot, there is simply no new lava source to keep them “afloat.”
"However, if they are only around 4,500 years old, then the islands have experienced about a third of a mile of erosion. And that is precisely what we observe. The Hawaiian Islands really are young." (Clarey, 2016).
References
Clarey, T., Ph. D. (2016). Minuscule Erosion Points to Hawaii’s Youth. Retrieved from https://www.icr.org/article/9751
Rubin, K. (2014). Loihi Volcano. Hawaii Center for Volcanology. Retrieved from https://www.soest.hawaii.edu/GG/HCV/loihi.html
USGS, Fletcher H., C., et,al., U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Geological Survey, Open-File Report 2011–1051, … U.S. Geological Survey. (2011). U.S. Department of the Interior U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2011–1051 National Assessment of Shoreline Change:
https://www.decodedscience.org/kilauea-volcanic-eruption-hawaii-just-keeps-growing/50501
https://www.hawaii.edu/news/2018/04/25/low-lying-islands-uninhabitable-by-mid-century/
Footnotes:
This article was written by Professor Fred Echeverria, a former adjunct professor for the electrical engineering department at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.