Skylights are formed by sharky_

Photography • Landscape • posted on Sep 03, 2008

Open full image in new tab Zoom on image

Hover over top left image to zoom.
Click anywhere to exit.

Members remain the original copyright holder in all their materials here at Renderosity. Use of any of their material inconsistent with the terms and conditions set forth is prohibited and is considered an infringement of the copyrights of the respective holders unless specially stated otherwise.

Description

At the time I hiked with Punaguy, this skylight was not here as I have been tracking the lava tube to the Pali (hill) several times before. Skylights are formed when the roof of a lava tube collapse exposing the fluid lava flowing. It does add to the heat lost in the lava tubes cooling the lava somewhat. Cracks in the lava tube walls (50 ft away), air and rain seepage also adds to the cooling of the fluid lava. At some point, the lost of heat will cause the fluid lava to crystallize. Scientist has measured the heat lost within a lava tube in earlier flows with certain equations. qcond = 2k/cosh-1(2ho/D+1); qconv = 0.565 Ra1/2 T k; Ra =air g K T D / ( ); qrain = dw/dt Dw w Lw; qvisc = m g z/t = Q g z/x But its not happening here. My method here is simple. Pour water over the area you walk on. If it evaporates to fast? Stop! Get off! Simple as that. Forget about the heat loss. And don't be at this particular point when the skylight is formed. Aloha and thank you for viewing ps. See some incredible pictures of the plume exploding by "Punaguy" .

Comments (51)

)

Janiss

2:53PM | Thu, 04 September 2008

Really FANTASTICCCCCCC!

)

kasalin

2:29PM | Sat, 06 September 2008

Just spectacular !!! V O T E : 5** :):):)

)

bmac62

10:40AM | Sun, 07 September 2008

Wow, this is truly a hot photo! Glad you posted your notes. My first thought was hope he doesn't fall through the next skylight. This is spectacular...am going to add you to my favorites so I don't miss more of these outstanding images in the future. Over the years I have had the good fortune to visit Hawaii numerous times...but I still haven't visited lands such as this. I have always been working at one of the Army bases in the center of Oahu. At least I've been staying on Waikiki and doing the full tourist business at pearl, etc. Enjoy the rest of the weekend, Bill

)