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Pu'u Koa'e (Kahakuloa Head), the prominent hill on the east side of Kahakuloa Bay, is an eroding dome of light-colored trachyte that was emplaced (more than 500,000 years ago) in the crater of a large active pumice-and-cinder cone. The explosive eruptions that occurred subsequently covered much of the surrounding area with whitish trachyte ash and cinders.
Light-colored trachyte overlies a dark-red laterite paleosol (see outcrop just below eroding gray promontory in center of photograph). The trachyte was erupted as ash and cinders when the trachyte dome at Kahakuloa Head was emplaced in the large active cinder cone. Photograph taken southeast of Kahakuloa village, west Maui.
Pu'u Koa'e (Kahakuloa Head), the prominent hill on the east side of Kahakuloa Bay, is an eroding dome of light-colored trachyte that was emplaced (more than 500,000 years ago) in the crater of a large active pumice-and-cinder cone. The explosive eruptions that occurred subsequently covered much of the surrounding area with whitish trachyte ash and cinders. Kahakuloa village, west Maui.
Intense wave action has steadily eroded this promontory of trachyte ash near Kahakuloa Head, west Maui.
The Dragon's Teeth, at Makaluapuna Point near Kapalua, west Maui. Note the numerous cracks (known as "joints") and weathering pits on the surface of the old trachyte lava flow. The long promontory of rock protruding into the bay was a lava flow that ran halfway down the slopes of the West Maui Mountains caldera (located near the Needle at 'Iao valley). The old flow structure contains numerous large lava tubes below where this photo was taken; they served as conduits for the still-molten lava flowing within the rapidly cooling flow.
Evidence of physical weathering at work on the trachyte lava of The Dragon's Teeth, at Makaluapuna Point near Kapalua, west Maui.
The Dragon's Teeth, Makaluapuna Point, near Kapalua, west Maui. The light-colored volcanic rocks (trachyte) along this portion of Honokahua Bay may have acquired their distinctive upward-curving orientation as immense waves pounded against a freshly-erupted lava flow inching its way out into the bay, causing the rapidly cooling flow rocks to warp upward. The subsequent years of wave action eroded the rock along cracks (called "joints") that formed after the rock cooled. The volcanic rock is less resistant to wave erosion along these joints so that the more resistant rock of the "teeth" is left intact. This lava flow is part of the last eruptive cycle on Maui; it is the same age as that of near La Perouse Bay at Cape Kina'u (erupted about 1790 AD).
Pu'u Koa'e (Kahakuloa Head), the prominent hill on the east side of Kahakuloa Bay, is an eroding dome of light-colored trachyte that was emplaced (more than 500,000 years ago) in the crater of a large active pumice-and-cinder cone. The explosive eruptions that occurred subsequently covered much of the surrounding area with whitish trachyte ash and cinders.
Pu'u Koa'e (Kahakuloa Head), the prominent hill on the east side of Kahakuloa Bay, is an eroding dome of light-colored trachyte that was emplaced (more than 500,000 years ago) in the crater of a large active pumice-and-cinder cone. The explosive eruptions that occurred subsequently covered much of the surrounding area with whitish trachyte ash and cinders.
Pu'u Koa'e (Kahakuloa Head), the prominent hill on the east side of Kahakuloa Bay, is an eroding dome of light-colored trachyte that was emplaced (more than 500,000 years ago) in the crater of a large active pumice-and-cinder cone. The explosive eruptions that occurred subsequently covered much of the surrounding area with whitish trachyte ash and cinders.
See photo in original gallery.
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