Kauai Final Assessment

The island of Kauai was formed by a hot spot on the ocean floor. Hot spots are underwater volcano's. When tectonic plates shift they can open up these hot spots releasing molten hot magma. As the lava spills over itself and spreads away from the center it cools in the water becoming hard volcanic rock. As this volcanic rock grows in size from layers of cooling lava it eventually rises above sea level becoming an island. Tectonic plates continue to shift and will eventually stop the hot spot from being able to release more lava, ultimately finalizing the islands size.

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With the plate movement and the influence from the ocean currents along with various types of weathering, mostly precipitation, land formations such as hills and mountains are formed. Some of the mountains have very distinct grooves in them from microsolutional long term weathering, leaving sharp horns on their summits. These grooves create drainage's for precipitation to travel down creating waterfalls and rivers.


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The flow of water through the landscape allows for erosion weathering. It erodes soils making rives wider and it erodes rock formations by getting into the fissures and eventually causing separation of land mass causing rock and mud slides or complete mountain sides to shave off. 

The ocean currents cause shore erosion. With the tides ranging from calm spilling tides and quality surfing plunging tides to some powerful surging tides during the heavier storm seasons. These tides all cause a degree of coastal weathering. They wash up on to shore sometimes with a long shore current which is an angled impact of the waves against the shore. As the tide connects to shore it causes a swash and backwash effect. This is where the water shifts the sands and other sediments up or down shore depending on the direction of the long shore current.

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Kauai in 1000 years. Kauai will remain an independent island of the Hawaiian Islands. It will not fluctuate in square miles much more than it is today. The constant weathering the island receives from the frequent rain storms and the ocean currents may allow the beaches of the island to shift and relocate around the island. Some smaller weathering will take place around the island because of the frequent precipitation received.

Kauai in 10,000 years.  A ten thousand year rotation could land earth back into another ice age. This would lower the temperatures and sea level would lower with glaciers accumulating again. Temperatures, precipitation and vegetation will vary depending on the severity of the ice age.   

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Kauai in 1,000,000 years:  The plates shifted partially combining the Hawaiian Islands. The world has officially come out of its ice age and temperatures are hotter. Precipitation amounts received are less because of the higher temps absorbing larger amounts of precipitation. The island remains in the coastal region and is still lush with vegetation. Sea levels have risen because of the Antarctic and Greenland melting.

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Research to support hypotheses:

http://www.livescience.com/19212-sea-level-rise-ancient-future.html  Sea level

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130424-a-vision-of-our-future-climate climate change
The long road http://theresilientearth.com/?q=content/long-road-ahead

 

Sites for pictures:

http://traveltips.usatoday.com/landforms-hawaii-106197.html Picture #1

http://paradiseintheworld.com/kauai-hawaii/Spilling Picture #2

http://traveltips.usatoday.com/landforms-kauai-105876.html Picture #3

http://gavas.com/SIMPLY_STUNNING_PHOTOS.htm #4

http://mail.colonial.net/~hkaiter/ContinentalDrift.html #5

The wonderful climate of Kauai

In Kauai it usually rains at night with occasional daytime rain showers. This is because the atmosphere is warm and has a higher saturation quantity, which means capable of holding more moisture. When night falls and the atmosphere cools, the total saturation quantity is lessened resulting in evening and nighttime rain showers. Trade winds carry the thunderstorms over the ocean and the North shores of Kauai are the first to be greeted.

The trade winds travel over Kauai from a Northeasterly direction. with this travel pattern the North and East sides of Kauai get the most precipitation. While the winds carry the storms over the island they cross over the mountains region which is in the Northeast portion of the island. When the clouds travel over the mountains the atmosphere cools, and the ability to hold the high moisture content is diminished, resulting in heavy rain showers over the mountains. Mount Waialeale is recorded as the the rainiest location on earth, accumulating an average of four hundred and forty inches of rain a year. The north side of the island receives an average of forty five inches a year and the East shores receive about thirty five inches a year.

Rainfall is an indication of one hundred percent humidity, meaning that the balance between humidity and atmospheric temperature are at equilibrium (just right). With this the dew point is reached and ground condensation occurs. Kauais tropical location allows for warmer temperatures most of the year so ground condensation will usually turn to a gaseous state, making the air feel warmer and moist. Sometimes the winds will shift from the Northeast to the Southwest which bring whats called the Kona Winds. These winds bring heavy rain fall and warmer temperatures. The kona winds make the climate on the Southwest side of the island very humid and it receives copious amounts of precipitation. These winds make the air feel hot and sticky, not very desirable. The Kona winds are a very rare occurrence and they have short term predictability.  
The clouds that bring in the thunderstorms to Kauais shores are called Cumulonimbus with anvil. They are very tall and can be seen from a great distance. They very in color from snow white to dark grey. The tops of these clouds will be white because of how tall they are the moisture crystallizes. Closer to the base is where color variation is noticed.

Pictures are from google images
Information source:
http://www.kauaivacationsecrets.com/kauai-weather/ accessed April 17, 2013

Weathering and Erosion in Kauai

There are many types of weathering that can take place. Due to Kauais unique location and various attributes, many forms of weathering can be seen. Lets Begin.

Photo reference located on the bottom of the page

 

Here in this photo along the back wall there are fissures or small cracks in the rock. These small cracks create joint weaknesses. These are spots in the rock were types of weather can enter and erode the joint further opening it or allowing the rock to completely break apart.  With the consistent moisture getting into these joints via rain fall or river water flow, the rock is constantly being eroded. The rock surrounding the water and laying at the base of the cliff appear to be Talus. These are large rock pieces that have separated from the primary mass because of weathering and accumulate at the base.    

 

 



 



Photo reference located on the bottom of the page

Starting with the bottom of the photo there are many little holes in the rock. These are a form of cavernous weathering, usually caused by salt weathering.  Being that the river is so close to the ocean, it is highly probable that the water in the river is salt water,which could be a contributing factor to the erosion of the rock and causation of the cavernous weathering. Cavernous weathering is when there are holes in the rock. The holes can vary in size, the holes in the picture represent the term Aveoli.  They were formed by salty water constantly running over weak parts in the rock, breaking away the minerals slowly until it eroded a hole in the rock. Now looking across the river, there looks like some white salt deposits on the rock face. Moisture from the river likely carried the salt deposit to the rock and accumulated with time. There is not a lot of visible salt probably because of the constant interaction with moisture. The salts that formed on the rock face has crystallized and is exerting outward energy. If the salts were to crystallize in a rocks fissure or pores, the outward energy created by the crystallizing salt could make the rock crack further or completely break apart.   

Photo reference located on the bottom of the page

 

Kauai has a very dynamic hydrology cycle. Rain fall is a huge contributing factor to the overland flow which is the water that runs off the land and is not absorbed because the soil is already at its maximum saturation. The majority of the soils on the island are very permeable. The permeability is obvious because of all the luscious vegetation. Based on the health of the vegetation the water that saturates the land is likely capillary water. This is a type of water that plant life can absorb and use to sustain life. The ocean water surrounding the island plays an important role in the land erosion of Kauai. The ocean releases salt into the air which is picked up into the atmosphere and rained back down on to the islands surface. The run off makes its way back to the ocean and cycles as such. The ocean has a tendency to pull in frequent rain storms because the air currents traveling over the ocean. The ocean is the primary reason why the island is so well moisturized and is also the main contributor to the islands erosion.

Photos came from Google Images, search Kauai. The links for the individual picture will not post correctly.

 

Kauai's Origion

The Island of Kauai is part of the Hawaiian island chain that sits near the middle of the Pacific plate. The islands were made from earthquakes in the plate which caused fissures near a hotspot allowing magma to flow upwards. The magma builds upon itself until it reaches sea level, creating an island. The magma that reached above sea level became the base of Kauai, also know as a shield volcano.

This type of volcano is low in elevation and has slow lava flow from eruptions. the magma poured down the sides and and continued to create a land base. Over the time span of 5 million years the beautiful island of Kauai was formed.  The plate which contains the Hawaiian hotspot moves slowly over time and eventually the magma source is cut off from one island and begins creating a new one. The main island of Hawaii is the only island in the chain that has constant magma influence from the hotspot beneath. The other islands would need some large eruptions to cause major magma flow again.

http://www.pdc.org/iweb/volcano_history.jsp

Intro

Hello, My name is Jake. I will be blogging on the geographical properties of Kauai, Hawaii. The reason I chose this location dates back to my younger years. I was always fascinatede with the landscaping in the Jurrasic Park movies. They filmed the movies mostly in California and Kauai which I think is pretty neat. Kauai has multiple geographical features such as volcanic activity that I think will be very interesting to research. Kauai looks like a beautiful place to visit some day.