Volcanic Views

Resource for Grades 2-6

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Media Type:
Video

Running Time: 2m 24s
Size: 15.1 MB

Source: Nature: "Kilauea: Mountain of Fire"

Learn more about the Nature film "Kilauea: Mountain of Fire."

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This video segment from Nature features Hawaii’s most notorious volcano, Kilauea. Over 10,000 years ago, Kilauea emerged from a hotspot on the ocean floor and began a journey that continues today. This active volcano has made The Big Island the largest in the Hawaiian island chain. In 1983, a vent called Pu’u O’o developed. When the vent erupts, red hot molten lava can, at times, explode 1,000 feet into the air, with a sound that is deafening.

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Discussion Questions

How does volcano formation in Hawaii differ from volcanoes in other parts of the world?
Hawaii is made up of multiple islands. Which island has formed to be the largest of the chain?
Where does lava exit the volcano?
While you watch the video segment, look and listen for three characteristics of volcanoes – how they look, sound, act, etc.

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Transcript

Narrator: Volcanoes in other parts of the world form when plates along the Earth’s crust collide or are wrenched apart. But Hawaii’s rise from far deeper – straight out of hot spots, down in the planet’s mantle.

Perhaps a hundred thousand years ago, Kilauea broke the water’s surface to help form the biggest island of the chain -- Hawaii.

One of its latest outbursts – a vent called Pu’u O’o.

Ben Brooks: So now we’re coming up from the ocean up towards Pu’u O’o. And you can see that the whole edifice is filled with a bunch of volcanic fume.

Narrator: Kilauea has generated enough lava to pave a two-lane highway over a million miles long – churning it out of vents like Pu’u O’o.

Brooks: Basically, in a short period of time the lava lake which was in the center of the crater drained very rapidly, and this new vent formed here over on the east side. You can see the black fresh lava.

Narrator: Notorious as Pu’u O’o is, it only began in 1983...

One witness was Park Ranger, Greg Santos.

Greg Santos: When Pu’u O’o would go off, we would literally get woken up in the middle of the night. The loud roar sounded like a fleet of 747s. Even from five miles away, it would get so loud, we couldn’t talk to each other. The noise is just deafening. Red, hot molten lava shooting up in the air a thousand feet or more.