Kahoolawe

Kahoolawe, Hawaii
Location: 20.6N, 156.6W
Elevation: 1,475 feet (450 m)

Kahoolawe, a single shield volcano, consists of a nearly filled caldera and a rift zone that trends to the southwest. Kahoolawe is about 12 miles (20 km) across and the smallest of the major Hawaiian Islands. This photo is looking to the east. Photo by Jack Lockwood, U.S. Geological Survey, March 31, 1984.

Kahoolawe is made of tholeiitic and alkalic basalt of the shield and capping stages. A rock from the capping stage has been dated at about 1 million years old. This photo is looking to the east. Kanapou Bay, on the east side of the island, marks he location of the caldera. Photo by Jack Lockwood, U.S. Geological Survey, March 31, 1984.
During the rejuvenated stage a small number of eruptions occurred near Kanapou Bay. The age of these rocks are unknown.

From Luamakika, the 1,477-foot-high crater that's

the highest point on Kahoolawe, you get a sweeping view of Lanai, Molokai and South Maui. Across the channel, Haleakala, the 10,000-foot peak on Maui, dominates the view. It's beautiful and majestic, but it is Kahoolawe's cruelest enemy. The entire island of Kahoolawe sits in Haleakala's rain shadow. The windward side of Maui gets up to 350 inches of rain a year, but Kahoolawe, sitting in the lee of the massive volcano, gets barely 25 inches a year. This, the smallest of the major Hawaiian islands, is also the driest.

Despite its unpromising conditions, Kahoolawe has a firm place in Native Hawaiian history. In ancient times, the channel between

Kahoolawe and Lanai was called Kealaikahiki, Ñthe pathway to Tahiti.æ It was here that the voyaging canoes left on their perilous journeys to the islands of Southern Polynesia. One of Kahoolawe's peaks held a school for navigation by the stars, which was the Hawaiians' method for finding their way across the vast expanses of the Pacific. There were also religious and fishing shrines and a major quarry for making adz, an axlike tool formed of hard stone. For several centuries, the island supported a settlement of hundreds of Hawaiians. That settlement left a priceless archaeological record, largely because hardly anyone has lived on the island since.

Kahoolawe also has a stirring modern history“as the site of a major conflict between the Native Hawaiians and the federal government. In 1898, when the United States annexed the islands, the federal government took over 200,000 acres of Hawaiian crown lands, including the 28,776 acres of Kahoolawe. During World War II, the military used the uninhabited island as a shelling range. After the war, the island was turned over to the Navy, which used it for training activities“live-fire naval shelling, practice bombing runs, combined air-sea-and-amphibious operations. You could hear the explosions quite clearly from the luxury resorts on South Maui.

In 1976, a small boatload of Hawaiian activists occupied the island despite the dangers of the shelling. A year later, two others died trying to rescue some of their fellows from the island. That was one of the defining moments of the Hawaiian Renaissance“the movement that brought a revival of Hawaiian culture in the islands. It also galvanized statewide opposition to continued military use of the island. Finally, in 1993 the federal government stopped the bombing and handed Kahoolawe back to the Hawaiian people.

Congress ordered a major ten-year ordnance cleanup on the island in order for it to become a cultural preserve. Casual visits are, of course, discouraged. There is no fresh water on the island, little shelter outside of the old Navy camp at Smugglers Cove and the only way in is by wading through the surf to the Native Hawaiian camp at Hakioawa. In addition to this, there's the danger posed by 50 years of shells and bombs dropped on the island“some of which remain unexploded!

I got these images off of Google and if the owner would like me to take them off, you can email me.