Bio lesson 101

Well one of the best parts about being a biology major in such a beautiful place is the opportunity to explore nature while learning tons about it. Maybe sometimes a little too much about it. This semester I am taking Pacific Natural History and on Saturday we took our first field trip. This is only about a 1/4 of what we learned in 9 hours. We went down to Makapuk'u Pt. on the south side of the island. There we learned a lot about plants and about lots of the geography that created the islands.



This is a picture of Ma'o or Hawaiian cotton. It has become very valuable because is is resistant to the diseases that kill normal cotton, so they are trying to do gene replacement therapy. It is endemic to Hawaii and only found in this location on Oahu.

Heading up

So this isn't the best picture, but I was surrounded by bio majors not art majors!

These pictures are at about 1/2 way up our destination. We started past the second major cove that goes the farthest inland, you can see it better in the last picture. You can also see Koko crater in the upper left corner of the picture.

This is a closer look at koko crater. You can kind of make out the two calderas the big one is towards the top and the smaller one is at the bottom. These are examples of phearatomagnatic eruptions (big boom). You can tell which way the wind was blowing during the eruptions because the ash is built up higher on one side.

This is the view from our destination. It is one of the best views on Oahu! The steep cliffs were created when a huge part of the island fell off into the ocean. They can see parts of the huge landslide almost 100 miles off coast! Imagine that tsunami! The islands are sinking back into the ocean and are already made of very porous and unstable rock, so these huge landslides have occurred on all the islands. They are also responsible for the Napali Coast. Also if you look in the picture at the black lava flow, in the ocean, right on the right side of the beach is the last volcanic flow on Oahu, it happened about 25,000 years ago.


This is the remnant of the Oahu Ko'olau shield volcano. The top of the mountain used to stand about 14,000 ft when the island was still active. That is about the height of Big Island right now, currently the highest point on Oahu is over on the west side and only about 4,000 ft. So Oahu has sunken about 10,000 ft over lots and lots of years and eventually so will Big Island. The Ko'olau is one of the 2 main volcanoes that built Oahu. The caldera now sits about 100 yards from Queens Medical Center where Hailey was born. You can compare the gentle slope on one side to the cliffs on the other side of the volcano, this is where the island slide away.

These were all views from the top!

The trail back down was just as exciting. Our tail is on the left side of picture on the edge of the cliff, between the trees.

After the main hike we had lunch from a lunch cart at sandy beach. After the break we headed up the coast a little ways. At the turnout right after the blow hole we got out and went down to the shore to look at some more geography.


These are layers of ash called tuff. Each layer represents a separate eruption and the big block of white is petrified coral that was covered over.These are called pisolites. They are essentially petrified rain. Apparently it was raining during an eruption and as the water fell it formed mud and the mud hardened.

So there will be a quiz over all vocabulary terms and also over plant identification. I learned a lot that day, I think a little bit more than I wanted, but over all it was a really really fun trip and I'm getting excited for the other trips we have planned (including a 4 day trip to Maui)!

Also I got some pictures to go along with my Labor Day post thanks to Katie!